Testing Season, Tweeners, and Basketball

It's come again, that time when teachers of the benchmark years (4th, 7th, and 10th) start to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because we haven't covered everything that might be on the test that decides whether our district has met AYP.  The poor high school teachers start their testing season March 16th.  Thankfully I have till after spring break to take my students through their final prep.  My grade level team and I are so concerned about our students that the final three weeks of March  will find us grouping for math so that we can better use our para-educators, and we'll be teaching math twice a day.  My focus will be on measurement.  

Our biggest problem with math this year is that we have two different sets of expectations to teach.  Our state instituted new math performance objectives this year, however, this year's state test was printed with the previous set of expectations. So I have to teach the old math standards so the kids will be prepared for this year's test and the new standards so they'll be ready for 5th grade.  

Forrest and I have officially become "tweeners." You know those people who still have kids at home and ailing parents to care for.  Forrest's mom is in the hospital.  The doctors originally thought she'd had a stroke.  It turned out to be bleeding on the brain rather than a clot, but the effects on the body are very similar.  Forrest spent three days in Spokane meeting with her doctors and the director of the rehab center that she'll be moved to late this week.  It looks like she'll be in the rehab center for three weeks relearning some of the skills she'll need to continue living on her own.  My mother-in-law is a very independent woman who likes to do things her way so I'm sure having to be on an institutional schedule will be trying for her. Thankfully she has three grown grandchildren in their late twenties and early thirties who live nearby who can help out between Forrest's visits to check up on her progress.

Noah's league tournament starts Friday night.  For once we're not in the same half of the bracket as the top two ranked teams.  They boys have a good shot at making it to the final round for the first time ever.  His team's fourth place finish has also earned them a spot in a tournament the following weekend.  In that tournament the top four teams in his league will compete against the top four teams from an Eastern Washington league.  And guess what? Baseball practice starts tonight.  I'm ready for basketball to be over so we can move onto the slower pace of the baseball season.