Friday, August 10, 2007
Back to school.....
Last night was meet the teachers and open house night. It was total chaos at the school. This year, instead of listing each teacher and the kids, they listed the kids alphabetically and what teacher they had. I had decided to go to Alyssa's classroom first, since the kindy/1st/2nd hall would be more crowded. The problem was that I also had Jack with me and once AGAIN those two were picking on each other. This did not leave a good impression on Alyssa's teacher that she is stepping on his toes, etc. Also she was suppose to fill out a sheet about herself and hemmed and hawed about it. I did tell the teacher about the ADHD , with mostly distractibility. Alyssa ended up with a girl from last year's class and one other girl that she knows pretty well. She probably knows some of the other kids, but those were the notables. Of course, as usual, there is this one class that seems to have a whole bunch of all the kids Alyssa knows. There always is that one class, but she is not in it. Alyssas teacher is Ms. Yoo. I heard that she is organized and strict, but in a very calm manner. That should be good for Alyssa. So far there are 18 kids in her class. I also signed Alyssa up for a thursday , after school, computer keyboarding class.
AFter socializing some, we went to the other side to meet Jack's teacher. His is only going to be there for 6 weeks until his real teacher returns from Maternity leave. This is one thing about this school that I dont like. The tend to move teachers around from grade to grade, and in the younger grades you have the pregnant ones, that tend to be out a bunch at some point. From Alyssa's kindy year to now, there is probably only 2 of 8 teachers still there. 1st grade about the same as well. Even 2nd grade and some 3rd grade has a turnaround. one 3rd grade teacher 2 years ago taught 1st grade, and one taught 1st or kindy last year. Alyssa's teacher last year taught pre-K for many years and this year is doing ESOL. (english 2nd language). The other thing I dont like is that for 1st grade they no longer break the kids out for math according to ability. That is one thing I previously liked. I dont find this school so great as the years have gone by. They have 100 more students that they anticipated due to some unexpected condo development. The principal just sticks to basics here. Some other schools in the district go beyond to meet the needs of the students. But the alternative is private, which I cannot afford right now.
Anyway, Jack will do fine. he has our neighbor in his class, who is also in TAG as well. It would be nice if they became friends, but Jack is not a "boys boy" so I dont know that they will. There is a great girl that JAck played Tball with 2 years ago. Felix remembered the dad and mom since he did most of Tball. I bet Jack becomes friends with her. There were some other names I recognized, but maybe 1-2 kids from his class last year. Not any of his "friends", but that is ok. I know that his one friend (girl) is also in TAG with him.
The other thing is that both my kids have very late lunches again this year. Jack is at 12:00 and Alyssa is at 12:30. Last year Jack was 11:35 and Alyssa was 12:20. So even later. The other good news is that they are putting Math first thing in the am. That was a big issue for Alyssa last year. There is new MAth curriculum, so I guess they want to be sure kids are fresh when learning it.
Another neat thing this year is that you can pay online for the cafeteria, as well as monitor your account. No more sending checks in and not knowning how much $$$ you have. And Jack's DEAR time is after lunch, not before they go home, so I can maybe do it here and there if I visit for lunch.
Anyway, I was worried last night about the impression both Alyssa and I made on her teacher. Alyssa with her behavior and myself with how I handled it all, plus the fact that I probably talked too much.
I wont even go into what happened when Felix left to take them home. He wanted to get them food, but they could nto agree, got into a fight, and good for Felix, he took them home and sent both of them to their rooms!
AFter socializing some, we went to the other side to meet Jack's teacher. His is only going to be there for 6 weeks until his real teacher returns from Maternity leave. This is one thing about this school that I dont like. The tend to move teachers around from grade to grade, and in the younger grades you have the pregnant ones, that tend to be out a bunch at some point. From Alyssa's kindy year to now, there is probably only 2 of 8 teachers still there. 1st grade about the same as well. Even 2nd grade and some 3rd grade has a turnaround. one 3rd grade teacher 2 years ago taught 1st grade, and one taught 1st or kindy last year. Alyssa's teacher last year taught pre-K for many years and this year is doing ESOL. (english 2nd language). The other thing I dont like is that for 1st grade they no longer break the kids out for math according to ability. That is one thing I previously liked. I dont find this school so great as the years have gone by. They have 100 more students that they anticipated due to some unexpected condo development. The principal just sticks to basics here. Some other schools in the district go beyond to meet the needs of the students. But the alternative is private, which I cannot afford right now.
Anyway, Jack will do fine. he has our neighbor in his class, who is also in TAG as well. It would be nice if they became friends, but Jack is not a "boys boy" so I dont know that they will. There is a great girl that JAck played Tball with 2 years ago. Felix remembered the dad and mom since he did most of Tball. I bet Jack becomes friends with her. There were some other names I recognized, but maybe 1-2 kids from his class last year. Not any of his "friends", but that is ok. I know that his one friend (girl) is also in TAG with him.
The other thing is that both my kids have very late lunches again this year. Jack is at 12:00 and Alyssa is at 12:30. Last year Jack was 11:35 and Alyssa was 12:20. So even later. The other good news is that they are putting Math first thing in the am. That was a big issue for Alyssa last year. There is new MAth curriculum, so I guess they want to be sure kids are fresh when learning it.
Another neat thing this year is that you can pay online for the cafeteria, as well as monitor your account. No more sending checks in and not knowning how much $$$ you have. And Jack's DEAR time is after lunch, not before they go home, so I can maybe do it here and there if I visit for lunch.
Anyway, I was worried last night about the impression both Alyssa and I made on her teacher. Alyssa with her behavior and myself with how I handled it all, plus the fact that I probably talked too much.
I wont even go into what happened when Felix left to take them home. He wanted to get them food, but they could nto agree, got into a fight, and good for Felix, he took them home and sent both of them to their rooms!
# posted by sandy @ 7:23 AM 
