Back to School

I'm exhausted. Two days of professional development, back to the school building to pick up my class lists, and, well, they won't work. I'm going to have a tough couple of weeks while I teach disposable lessons and try to get us through the worst of it.

Basically, back in June, the counselor of the school and I carefully planned some great class lists, including current students and the incoming sixth graders. Then, over the summer, she quit. We have a new counselor and a new vice principal. My class lists are problematic as follows:

1. I have nine kids in one class, and seven in the other. This is ridiculous. I should be starting with at least fifteen in each group, possibly more than twenty-five.

2. Many kids who should be in my classes aren't. Presumably they were signed up for mainstream classes. (I teach ESL).

3. The kids who are in my classes are hopelessly jumbled according to skill level and cannot be taught together effectively.

4. None of the new sixth-graders have been put in my classes.

Monday is going to be very fun.