Tag: MCPS Teachers

Dime qué hacer

A yellow sticky note is taped to the beige cinderblock wall near my desk. On it I’ve written the names of six online compliance trainings that I need to finish: WiDA Screener training (paper?), Level 1 Health Awareness, Level 1 Substance Abuse, Handle With Care, MCPS Test Security, PSAT Test Security. I cannot remember the deadlines for any of them, but I know I’m running out of time.

The PSAT training gave me a “test out” option, which I appreciated. But I failed. Now I have to take the entire online course. But I can’t remember which platform it’s on: Performance Matters? Canvas? Is it through PDO or do I access the program via a link buried in a slide inside an email? Who sent the email? What date? Who can I ask?

My school has pushed out the deadline for SLOs (Student Learning Objectives). I know it’s coming up soon, but I haven’t even talked about it once with my co-teachers. Since we’re teaching the same students, shouldn’t we be using the same template? Only because I happened to be in the office when my RT (Resource Teacher) walked through did I hear any guidance. She said that since the school focus was on the four language domains (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing), that co-teachers should each focus on a domain. Glad to have a reminder of the school SIP. School Improvement Plan.

Last Monday, my RT held a department meeting and shared with all ELD teachers that we were going to complete the fall paperwork by ourselves this year and it’s due on October 1st. That’s 4.5 days to complete an onerous amount of paperwork that we had nothing to do with last year because their predecessor did most of the busywork herself. In fact, in my 25 years in MCPS, I’ve never had to print all the documents by myself.

Log into Synergy, find your students, upload the Parent Notification Letters. Print the PNLs, sign the PNLs, make three copies of each one. Give them to all your students, even if they’re getting the exact letter from another teacher in another class. Log the dates that you distributed the letters for parent signatures. Three times each. The photocopiers are never working. Wait. Synergy is down again. And my school-issued laptop won’t hold a charge. I have to leave school because my frustration level is peaking. A colleague walks in crying because of the pressure. I stay to comfort them.

Now the EL Plan, the English Language Plan, with official Accommodations for each student. There’s no list of students. We have to use our roster from Synergy to search for each student individually. Then click a bunch of drop-down menus with grade level, type of accommodations. Don’t forget to save! Then once it’s saved, you click on “Details” and actually check the boxes with accommodations. Open a new tab each time. This year we were advised to give bilingual dictionary accommodations only to Level 1 and Level 2 EML students. In the past everyone got this accommodation and extra time. Now I have to go back and check all the proficiency levels for all my students.

Do I have to complete a form for the No-Show students who are still on my roster?

I’m trying to focus on piloting a new curriculum in two of my ELD 3 Seminar classes, making slides, grading work in a timely manner, working with two new co-teachers who have never taught English 12, a new RT and five new colleagues all asking me what we’re supposed to be doing. We just finished Interims. But there’s not a moment to relax.

Several administrators from DELME Central Office will be visiting our school tomorrow, including the new Associate Superintendent for the Division of Multilingual Education, the DME division, pronounced “dee-may” like the Spanish word for “tell me.” The MCPS website can’t even keep up with all the acronym changes. ESOL, EML, ELD, SLIFE. Yet they expect me to keep up with all the paperwork, even when the deadline notification has probably violated my contract.

They want to see what’s going on in the classroom. But I want to talk to them about the ridiculous requirements for ELD teachers outside the classroom. I don’t want to be that teacher who always complains. But if I don’t speak up, who will?

DME. Dime! Tell me. What should I do?

Finding Fellowship in Times of Trouble

I went to church on Sunday, something that used to be so ordinary. I hadn’t been to Saint Camillus in two years. The parking lot was nearly empty. Every other pew was roped off to keep us safely six feet apart. A video camera in the back live-streamed the mass on Facebook. A small choir began a once-familiar song. I made the sign of the cross as the priest began, searching for something that felt like community.

When my parents moved us from Louisiana to upstate New York, and then to West Virginia, the pang of leaving home behind burned into my heart each time we had to say goodbye. “You have to make your own family,” Mom said as we started over in a new place. She said I was the resilient one, the sibling who adapted most quickly to their new environment. This trait has served me well, but two years of pandemic anxiety, isolation, and uncertainty might finally have depleted my reserves.

January started with a snow storm that closed schools for two days. That was a huge relief, since omicron was infecting everyone. The week before Winter Break, none of my classes had more than 50% attendance. We couldn’t get rapid tests, PCR testing wasn’t widely available yet, and results took too long. Commercial airlines were cancelling flights all over the country because flight attendants, pilots, and crews were in quarantine.

When the two-hour snow delay was announced for January 5th, MCPS leadership was not prepared. More than 90 bus routes had no drivers. Thousands of students were waiting outside in the freezing cold for buses that never showed up. Building service teams were short-staffed and struggled to clear the parking lots and get the buildings cleaned. So many teachers were out sick that there were not enough substitutes. Only 25% of 1,500 jobs were filled. Many students who did show up for school had to sit in an auditorium where social distancing was nearly impossible.

Teachers covered for absent colleagues, giving up precious planning periods over and over and over again. With no free time during the school day to prepare lessons, teachers went home every evening exhausted, with work yet to do. The superintendent held a public meeting that was so boilerplate and tone deaf that it infuriated the entire community: parents, educators, elected officials, and students. Both the principals’ union and the teachers’ union passed a No Confidence Resolution. Parent groups blew up social media. Students staged walkouts at all the high schools.

The mandated subject-matter testing continued as if there were no pandemic. Algebra, Government, Science, English Language Arts, a four-domain WiDA test for multilingual learners, and a two-day Progress Check that did not affect student grades or fulfill any graduation requirement. If administrators are so concerned about “learning loss,” why are they okay when kids miss so much class instruction to take meaningless tests?

In all of this (madness), I’ve tried to find some fellowship. My District 5 Councilmember Tom Hucker held a virtual Town Hall to listen to members of the community. More than 5,000 people showed up. Most expressed frustration and anger at the Board of Education and MCPS leadership. The teachers’ union has held many meetings and pushed out direct communication that addresses our immediate needs. I’ve gotten more involved in the union. Maybe this is my community.

It felt restorative to step into a real church on Sunday. The piano player improvised a few songs beautifully, and a middle-aged African American woman kept the beat using a complete drum kit. I clapped my hands and swayed — not a behavior typically associated with the Catholic Church — while tears streamed down my face. It almost felt like coming home. My mother would have been proud.