SPRING BREAK

I just came off of spring break. It was wonderful to have the time to relax. If you knew me personally, you'd know I'm all about my grand baby, who is now 22 months old. We see him almost daily and we willingly change plans if something comes up and a sitter backs out of some evening or weekend plans with them. Well, surprise, surprise, I didn't watch him during the day at all throughout the week of spring break. We maintained our evening 1 1/2 hr. time, but I didn't even mention anything about the day time. I knew if I watched him once, it would lead to two or three days. I knew if I watched him at all I wouldn't get things done around the house that I intended. These were things that had been needing done for months, such as clean the craft room, wipe down the walls (cobwebs and dust collect on the texture of the walls, who knew). There were more tasks throughout the week, but I need not to bore you with my activities around the house. The entire first semester we took trips during every holiday or long weekend. This time at home was greatly needed as was the time without my grand baby to get things done. I think things are now in good shape to get by until summer break.

I plan on doing one, maybe two more college week type activities before school is over. I've started a girls' group with three elementary girls. We are using the G.I.R.L.S. book. It is really a great resource, though on the expensive side. Before the week is up, I will have scheduled the online testing sessions for our spring tests. We begin retakes next week. On one hand I dread testing season every year. It takes me away from classroom lessons, adds to my already incredibly busy schedule and fills my office with boxes. I have 30 boxes sitting in my small office right now. Sad thing is, at least 12 of those boxes had 1 book or 5-10 sheets of paper in them and were filled the rest of the way fill bubble wrap. I still don't understand why, being a small school, they couldn't combine some of the contents of the boxes so that there are fewer or just reduce the number of test manuals. I am the only DTC, I think one manual to use and one as a spare are plenty, instead we get 12. However, on the other hand, I look forward to testing, because I get a lot of reading done during that time. Since I'm in the room with students working on computers and it's a small group, after reading directions and between walking around, I read, a lot. It also means once testing is over, school is just about 2 weeks from being over as well. So, I'm looking on the bright side. Testing is going to go smoothly and I can almost see the end of things for the 2014-15 school year!

Threshhold of testing

We are not quite in the testing season, though there are many tasks that are now either complete or at hand for testing. All student data has been uploaded to the testing company. Wouldn't you know it, the day after that took place we received a new student. Those of you in education for any length of time at all know this is no surprise. What else can we do but chuckle. Today I conducted a second test administrator and proctor training. I was also able to finish the testing schedule. We start testing the end of March/first of April with a retest window. Then we move right to our regular testing window for two weeks. Afterward, we have one week to make up any tests for those absent. That will take us all the way to May. Wow, thinking of it that way makes me realize the year is so close to being over! Last week was my week in the elementary. Between that, testing duties, pantry, book club and seeing individual students, it was quite a week! Scholarships are coming in almost one on top of another. This is great, though I'm not sure our students are taking full advantage of the information. We are on our last official college week.

The representative will be here on Friday. Until then students will answer trivia questions for prizes and to be entered into a drawing by the representative. This week's prizes are a little different than what we've been having. Same or different, it's always wonderful when they send us things for our activities. I think I'm going to do some games (bingo and scavenger hunt)with answers that pertain to our staff here on campus. Hopefully I can come up with more games to make it a full week.