this year has not went well
So I know its been a while since I have written. My situation with my teacher hasn’t gotten any better in fact it has gotten worse. She started sending me emails titled Daily summaries. Here is all the emails she sent to me:
Tuesday 10/6/2020
Overall good day today! We were able to get some more MAP done which is great. I need to have all the kids done by Friday. Adrian and Brisiana will be tested by you when they come back so I don’t have to give up whole group instructional time.
Important reminders:
-When MAP testing students if a student needs help please go to that student instead of helping them at the testing spot, that can cause a distraction to the student who is testing
-If I correct a student’s behavior please try not to make a comment following the correction (for example if I tell someone to pull their mask up please try not to be like MHMMMM or “Yea”)
-If a kiddo has an issue during specials I appreciate you telling me but please let the specialist tell me or wait until a different time to tell me rather than telling me in front of them or in front of other students.
-I have noticed and had some students and parents express that they feel that you target them or single them out, please be mindful of how many times a day you correct someone’s behavior, please also if you do correct behavior try to give them a compliment shortly after, a little goes a long way.
So her part about telling her when a student has a issue is very interesting because recently I was working with a student named April. The teacher has said that she doesn’t care for this student which I understand because I have students I don’t particularly care for either but I still treat them respectfully. So this day I was sitting near April during math time and April did well onĀ the first 2 problems that the class was doing. Mind you I’m not allowed to help the students during whole group math time which something is brought up later in the daily summaries about that situtation. So she did well on the first 2 problems but then the teacher tried to trick the kids and April got confused so the teacher came over near her and there happened to be another student that sat not too far from April and when April got nervous she looked over towards his area so she says out loud in front of the whole class” oh so you cheated off of Adrian.” I was like are you kidding me? How is her doing that any better than me talking about a students misbehavior in front of them at least with the student I was talking to her about it actually happened where as for April she wasn’t cheating I was sitting right there with her the whole time and she never once looked in Adrian’s direction until she made her nervous and she looked that way.Ā
The second part about she has witnessed me picking on students is bullshit. I even talked to the 2 former teachers I worked with and asked them if they noticed me doing that with students and they were like nope have never seen you do that. As for the parent complaint I know exactly who it was and I don’t understand why this student’s mom doesn’t care for me but I’ve known both her sons for quite a while and she lets them both get away with everything so it doesn’t shock me. The son that is in our class doesn’t eat anything. They are just now getting him to try stuff. I don’t sit with him at lunch because all he will do is avoid doing it and just keep talking to me.Ā
Daily Summary 10/7/2020
We finished MAP testing, YAY!!!! Adrian should be coming back to school either Friday or Monday, when he does return, we are going to need to test him right away. Brisiana should be back after next week, if the window is still open when she returns, we need to get her done as well. Tomorrow and Friday will be normal days. I should be having my informal observation coming up as well. Jesse is my evaluator so he will be popping in to observe.
Important reminders:
-Keep up the good work! š
one of the few where she has something positive to say.
Daily Summary 10/8/2020
Long night for me so I apologize this is getting out late! I am super pleased with the fact that I was able to get some small groups done.
Important Reminders:
-Tomorrow is Friyay!
-When working on sight words with kids, I would like to be the one keeping the data on their data sheet. The kids should know what color they are working on by next week, I will assess them about every two weeks depending on the student and their need/ goals. Please do not have the same students doing sights word every day. It is important that each student is given an opportunity to practice and I would like them to complete other tasks.
-When I am doing small groups please be up and walking around to assist other students instead of sitting with the groups that are going on.
-During whole group math please make sure the students are trying the problems that I have put up before assisting them, I use their responses to help drive the upcoming questions and lessons. (My reply-For the whole group math are you referring to April or someone else because with April all I did was draw what you had up on the elmo and asked her what goes where and she did the rest.) I did this because April forgot her classes and I wasn’t sure that she could see what was on the board so I used a small dry erase board and drew out the problem but I didn’t solve anything for her. She did all the work by herself)
-her response- Yes, I am okay with your drawing what is on the board but I would not even ask her what goes where because the point is for her to do it independently, I would like to see if she is able to do the whole thing on her own instead of being asked what goes where because then that guides her. They were asked to place the numbers where they go on their own to show me that they are understanding the concept being taught and if they are meeting the learning target.
my reply-So Iām confused with what you want me to do then.
her reply-If you have time in the morning come in. We can discuss it then.(I did not go in because of our first conversation being negative)
Daily Summary 10/13/2020
Today went well. I appreciate your help with running a few copies and that you were up assisting students during math groups.
important reminders:
-Keep up the good work!
-If you need to take some sort of medicine please do not take it in the classroom in front of students, please make sure to do that in the bathroom or in private. Please also do not be taking those bottles out in the room either.
-When the students are working independently on tasks please continue to be up and walking around to assist all students rather than staying at one spot and helping just one student.
-If you have a reminder for me please write it down on a piece of paper or a post it and stick it on my desk, sometimes when you want to remind me something it disrupts instructional time. (For example: I know attendance is due at 8:00am, I do not need a reminder at 7:45 or 7:50 to complete attendance, if it gets to be 8:30 and you are unsure if I have taken it then please write that reminder for me.)
-Following up with reminders, if I forget to do something please do not point it out to the students, yes I make mistakes and I am not perfect and I own up and show my mistakes to the kids but they do not need to know that I was reminded and I still forgot (For example: Last week you reminded me to take attendance, things got crazy and I had to take care of somethings and I forgot, when a student reminded me I said thanks for the reminder and you made a comment to the student “See we even gave her a reminder and she still forgot” is hurtful to me and is a comment that the students do not need to hear.)
So for the medicine I brought in ibruphoen and tynelol because I was having issues with my knee and sciatica at the beginning of the year and I had bought the pill containers that you unscrew to put them in so there was a DAY where I was putting them into the pill containers and I did take some a few times in the room but none of the kids were paying attention to me but after the first few weeks I didn’t take them out again in the room so why she is bringing up something that happened the first few weeks of school I couldn’t tell you. Then there was the thing about reminding her about stuff. How petty can you be? There was one day I reminded her about the kids needing to take their ipads to specials with them and she was like I KNOW. I guess she didn’t think being a bitch to me hurt my feelings but I did apologize to her but never got a apology for her snapping on me.Ā
Daily Summary 10/19/2020
First off thank you so much for your help while I was gone and this morning. We were complimented with how well you and the students know their routine.
Important reminders:
-For morning meeting, I would like us to switch between gen ed rooms that we push into for morning meet just to make ourselves present in both rooms.
-Keep up the good work, I appreciate all that you do.
So the only reason she had something positive to say this time was because she had to be out a few days because she got sent home with COVID symptoms and was waiting for her test results so I was pretty much the sub and knew our routine and we did pretty good without her.Ā
Thursday 10/22/20
What a week! Thank you again for all your help last week and making things go smoothly. Also to follow up with Monday’s email even though we did touch on it, when in the Gen ed rooms yes we will switch days that we are in there, for example Monday and Friday you would be with one class and me with the other and Tuesday we switch and then the next week it would be flipped so whoever you were with on Friday you would be in the other room on Monday.
Important Reminders:
-When related service providers are in the room doing group please assist with behavior but do not help them with responses to the questions that they are asking the students, they are in the room to work with the students and their goals that they have. They use their responses for data collection towards their benchmarks and goals.
-When the students are taking any assessment of any kind especially pre/post-tests please do not help them at all with the assessment, I use their assessments as data to track their goals to set new goals for the class. Looking at some of the data it is apparent when a student is helped on an assessment when they are given a pre-assessment that is about something that is challenging and slightly above their level since they have no learned it yet and they do well on that assessment.
-When we are doing whole group activities or the students are taking an assessment please do not take that time as time to complete a word search or other leisure activities , instead please monitor the students making sure that they are on the correct question and on task.
Tomorrow is Friday!!Ā š
So for the assessment part of things it’s interesting that she wrote not to help on assessments but she does it after telling the students we are not helping them on it. As for the word search comment yea I did aĀ word search during their assessment but what else am I supposed to do when she is reading the questions and answers to them because they should be on task if she’s literally reading the whole thing to them and if they aren’t that’s not my problem because in another daily summary she says how she wants them to be independent. Well if she wants them to be independent then they should be paying attention when they are taking a assessment.Ā
Friday 10/23/2020
I apologize Iām sending this so late it was a crazy end of the day yesterday. What a week it was, the weekend was definitely earned!
Important reminders:
-When we are doing small groups during math and literacy please only working on the topics and skills that we have been addressing. I understand and am aware that some students are higher than others and can do the skills well, when doing extra practice with them please work on only the skills we have worked on during whole group. For example if a student has mastered two-digit addition without regrouping, please do not introduce them to addition without regrouping, there are certain skills and steps I would like them to use and I want to make sure they are fully ready for it. If they are choosing to do extra practice and they master it with you, you can encourage them to also do freckle math since that is at their level and independent practice.
-In response to your email about practicing for remote learning, you do not need to bring your personal laptop but rather we have a extra chrome book for you to use Iām not sure how much you will be able to utilize the devices when practicing since they will be mostly completing independent activities but we can get you set up just in case with a district device.
One more full week and then a extra day off, we got this!
So for this one I’m really confused on that one because if a student is higher what is the issue with starting them on the next skill because then at least they will be familiar with it. You can still teach the skills and steps but I don’t understand what’s wrong with getting them introduced to a new skill.Ā
Daily Summary 10/28/2020- 10/29-2020
Important Reminders:
-When we are practicing virtual learning please do not talk to the students or walk them through how to sign back into something. They need to be able to figure it out for themselves and walking them through it does nothing but teach them to be helpless and rely on us to always give them the answers.
-Please do not have the kids keep coloring sheets in their bins, it becomes a distraction to them, and they want to do that instead of their work.
-Please come to me with concerns or questions or suggestions please do not go to other staff members especially if it is regarding something we need for the classroom.
As for the coloring sheet those were going to be for a lockdown drill so the kids had something quiet to do so I figured it would save us time if they had it in their folder so then they could just pull it out and work it on while we were waiting for the drill to be done because of COVID they weren’t going to have us huddle together and hide in a corner. Guess I was wrong.Ā
So this next part is a reply to this daily summary: “For the virtual learning the kids canāt reach out to me on go guardian chat like they can to you which is part of the problem. Also you have to realize that not all of them know how to use the go guardian chat that well. Does go guardian have the text to speech option for it? Because if not then students like Neveah have no way to tell you they are having problems. I watched Neveah sit there for a half a hour the other day because she had the weird login screen happen and she had no clue how to do the go guardian chat so she finally gave up and went to sleep.Ā Iām completely for them being independent especially when it comes to the virtual learning but we have to make sure everyone has the tools to make it successful. As for coloring sheets I was only passing them out so we didnāt have to worry about it and they would already have them in their folders for the drill. The last thing is concerning April. I understand you donāt care for her and I get it completely but itās the empathy video the kids have been watching imagine how it feels to her when you are accusing her of cheating in front of everyone. I can promise you she was NOT cheating off of Adrian the other day. The first 2 problems she did completely by herself and she never once glanced in Adrianās direction besides the fact the girl is blind as a bat without her glasses and Adrianās screen was flat so how would she be able to see that far? She got confused when there was no ones and when you came over I think she started looking around because you make her nervous and same thing when sheās doing small group with you.”
her reply-
I really do not appreciate the tone of this email so I will not reply to it but rather you can come talk to me in the morning regarding these things because nothing in this email has anything to do with April or about her so please come talk to me in the morning.
my reply-
I donāt really think thereās anything else that needs to be discussed about it. I was just letting you know.
So after our first negative conversation I really don’t feel comfortable coming in to “talk” and my former teacher told me she didn’t think it’s a good idea to do a talk first thing in the morning because if it is a negative conversation then it would ruin my whole day which I agree on.Ā The teacher recently sent me a text message asking me to come in for a important chat first thing in the morning so the former teacher was like I wouldn’t. So she suggested that I ask if she could meet me with at lunch or afterschool. The teacher said that she couldn’t keep me from going out with the kids at recess even though she said it was going to be a quick 5 min convo and outside is well covered by lunch aides. Then she said for afterschool she had a meeting with the vice principal. I then asked why she couldn’t emailĀ whatever it was and she was like it’s a in person conversation. I don’t want to do any in person conversations with her seeing as I’m pretty sure it’s going to be like our first conversation which didn’t go well. So now my union rep is involved .Ā I had a meeting with the principal a few weeks ago and she pretty much said she doesn’t want to be a referee between us and to act professionally. I’ve been acting way more professional than she has. The teacher won’t even speak to me. At least if she holds a door open for me I say thank you. So now the principal wants to have a meeting with me on Friday which I asked if my union rep could come to which she said she could so I guess I will update on Friday. I just want to be able to help do something. Like I’m not really allowed to help with anything. My old teachers would let me go over sight words with the kids and they would have me do small groups with a few kids but this teacher I literally sit and do nothing most of the day mainly because she won’t let me do anything. I’ve been a para for 7 years and I’ve never had a problem with a teacher except 1 besides this one. She has only been a actual teacher for going on 2 years and she’s younger than me so she thinks she knows everything. It drives me crazy. My former teacher was like you should bring up your concerns to the principal but seeing as she said she doesn’t want to referee I don’t think she cares about my side of things. Hoping something positive comes out of Friday but have a feeling it won’t.