GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Last year, New York City first grade teacher Peace in the Classroom got trained in a literacy tutoring program which her administration promised to implement this year. But more than three months into the school year, they haven’t started yet, she says:

I am so desperate to get it off the ground that I have repeatedly inquired about when I am tutoring and which kid I will be tutoring. I even made up a possible tutoring schedule using times when a school aide could be with my class (like right when they come up from lunch), which I now can’t even offer because I need to use that time for oral storytelling. I offered for them to pay off my preps and tutor then. I have tried all I can so that this training, which probably cost at least $15,000 can actually be put to some good use.

After two incidents of youth violence in the city this week, New York City teachers may share Chicago teacher (and New York Times blogger) Victor Harbison’s fear that the economic tailspin will expose students to even more violence:

As unemployment figures go up, I imagine readers of the Times thinking about IRA’s and who will be on Obama’s economic team. … Me? When I hear unemployment is going up, I wonder how long before my students have to face violence in the home as well as on the streets. (There are tons of studies, like this one, that show a correlation between unemployment and a rise in domestic violence.)

Schools are feeling the effects of city belt-tightening, reports Peace in the Classroom, a first grade teacher:

I spent about 30 minutes today chopping 3 inches off about 500 copies of reading logs, writing paper choices, homework assignments, etc. You see, we are having another copy crisis at my school. I was told that this crisis is city-wide. Apparently (according to my AP), the chancellor has put a “freeze” on all new purchases, including copy paper. We have been without white paper for almost a week right now. …

When my “office” friends ask me what my job is like, I tell them, imagine being the CEO of a small company where you are expected to oversee employees, communicate with associates, and make a profit without email, copies, a phone, or any office supplies.

Teachers from another school have also told me about the supply freeze resulting in a shortage of copy paper.

New York City elementary school teacher-blogger Mimi has been keeping us updated on the parking permit distribution process at her school. She reports that some teachers lied about their commute to get passes — but here’s how her principal (a.k.a. “the Visionary”) handled the situation:

The Visionary also sent around a chart which included the names of everyone who requested a pass, their REPORTED mileage, their ACTUAL mileage and, my favorite column, the DIFFERENCE between those two numbers. …

[O]ne individual reported that she lives 55 miles away, when in fact her distance from school is a mere 22 miles. Wrong double digits, sweetheart. Another one of my favorites was the group of people who requested a pass, yet live less than one mile from school.

Middle school English teacher Ms. Malarkey shares her real-life experience with the city’s data management tools:

I’ve been a good little soldier and have been attempting to use more data. Of course, it took me about three weeks to be able to log on to Acuity. No one could figure out why, but then I realized that my old DOE e-mail account is somehow lost in cyberspace, replaced with a newer one I had no idea about with both my maiden and married names. In the meantime, I still haven’t been able to log on to ARIS.

From Bronx middle school science teacher Ms. Rubin, here’s why it’s not only teachers who need to plan strategically:

Okay, fire drills actually aren’t that exciting. We’ve had four of them since Friday, because apparently there’s some quota every school must meet by a certain day and we only started having them three days ago. But today one happened in the middle of our unit test on rocks and minerals, and it was a pretty spectacular disaster. Kids started literally screaming and running in circles, and before all was said and done I had two students in tears – one because he got kicked in the chest, another because he got perfume sprayed in his eye (and no, I have no idea why Marie thought it was necessary to spray perfume during a fire drill).

With the English Language Arts exam approaching, Bronx teacher-blogger Ruben is trying to cushion his students from test-prep stress:

I can deal with the stress. My main concern is to avoid projecting it too heavily onto the students. I can’t control it when other teachers make statements like, “If you don’t pay attention you’re going to be sitting right here next year, because you won’t pass the test!” However, I am doing my best to take the edge off the test and the dullness/tedium away from the endless stream of practice tests.

Today I asked the kids to try to find one interesting fact in the reading and after the practice test was over they all shared favorite parts they read in the stories, articles and poem. Will it work in the long term?

One of the city’s first grade teachers explains how being asked to set professional goals inspired her to change some of her teaching practices:

We have been told by our administration that we need to come up with our own professional goals and to help our students set their own goals in all subject areas. At first, I was really annoyed that they were saying this with the upcoming parent teacher conferences and all of the stuff I had to do, but I have to say that really thinking about my goals has given me a little push to do better (not that I’m not doing everything that I possibly can each day!!!), but somehow this process got me doing more. I decided that my goal for this year was to send all of my first graders to second grade reading at least close to the June benchmark (level I). Believe me, from past experience, and based on where my kids are right now, this is no easy feat. I have a room full of B and C readers and it is November.

Miss Brave, a New York City second grade teacher, got pumped to use her students’ reading data to plan really focused interventions this month:

So I stayed at school until after dark two days this week, planning and organizing my strategy lessons and guided reading groups until I was sure everything would run like clockwork. I pored over those running records and really got down to the nitty-gritty of the weaknesses we needed to tackle — I even felt like a bit of a rogue, planning strategy lessons that included Fundations work, but I was all, “The only thing holding these kids back is that they’re miscuing all the words that include vowel teams and blends, so let’s do it!” I felt really energized by the latest round of running records and ready to get down to business tackling my students’ weak areas one by one to help them move to the next reading level. Third grade, here they come!

Or so I thought. Because you know what happens when you get really energized by planning, don’t you?

What happened started with a memo she never received… and that’s just the beginning.

New York City 1st grade teacher Ms. Peace explains how she grew into teaching in her first three years:

With management in place and a good grasp of the core curriculum, I was able to focus more attention to Science and Social Studies. I integrated social studies by using related texts for shared reading and read aloud. Everything just seemed to flow together so smoothly my third year. The kids were making the connections too. It was a truly amazing year, one of the best I think I’ll ever have as a teacher.

But she hopes to keep growing in her fourth:

My goal for this year is to get my small group and intervention work to feel as seamless as everything else. … I want my class to be a place where the children are thinking and making connections. I want them to feel that learning is fun and stimulating and that they have access to everything we do in the classroom. I want them to feel the confidence to achieve and to be responsible for their own learning. I want them to take pride in their work and to feel good about trying their best rather than trying to be perfect. I want them to take risks and to feel safe doing so. I want first grade to be one of the best years of their lives.