Back to School Night

Met all of Fern's teachers, most of them are decent. None will accept late work. She will have three HSAs in the spring and possibly one AP exam in Spanish. Her Spanish class is a combo 4/5AP class. The AP kids will get more work through out the year and will have to take the AP test. If the Spanish 4 kids want, they can take the AP test too. If they pass, they will retroactively get credit for Spanish 5/AP (which is worth more GPA points).

Dan met Kevin's new teacher. He has the same classroom aid as he did last year, which is good. She'll help the new teacher get to know the students and will provide some continuity to the kids.

I know, fun stuff here at Anne's House. Back to school night, oooh, fun. On the other hand, we're heading to the beach for the weekend, regardless of what hurricane Earl does. That, will be fun.



 

Happy New Year!

Both kids were up and ready for school today, one with a peanut butter and strawberry sandwich, the other with a bag of last-year's pencils.

I hope they have a good day!


 

College Prep

Tuesday in Fern's Algebra2/trig class she had to take a placement test. Huh? Wouldn't they already know which class the kids should be in? Didn't they do that last year at scheduling time? Apparently not. Yesterday she messaged me, results are in and she's been moved up to the top level class with an American, English-speaking teacher. That was one of my biggest worries about this school year for her, getting a teacher she couldn't understand and not doing well as a result. The subject is hard enough as it is.

Class requirement: a graphing calculator. They will be teaching the class to the TI-83 and although other models & brands are acceptable, the student is responsible for learning how to use it on their own. The TI-83s retail for about $150, though the warehouse stores have them for $100. I found many on eBay and tried to bid on one which had about 12 minutes left to go.

It had been so long since I'd bought anything on eBay, I'd forgotten my password. So I had to reset it. They don't let you change it to anything it's been before. Which just makes it easier to forget in the first place. And harder to reset. I had to keep trying new passwords until I didn't get the "you've already used this one" message. Finally, after ten minutes, I get logged in, and placed a bid.

The eBay interface has really changed since I was on last. Now they have a active count-down clock, you don't have to keep reloading the page to see how much time is left. The number of bids and the current price also automatically updates so you can watch your cushy bid margin dwindle away to pennies before you actually win.

I hate bidders who bid $xx.01 on something. Really? Why'd ya have to do that? Now that makes my winning bid $47.01. Where's the take-a-penny leave-a-penny cup when you need it? Sheesh. This isn't The Price is Right. Well, ok, maybe it kinda is. But still!

Hopefully the seller will send it ASAP so The Girl won't be behind in class by too much. Not a good way to be the first week of school.

Wonder what else I need on eBay?


 

The thing I learned today

Whenever my grandfather saw me he'd ask, "What did you learn today?" And I had to tell him. It was a good exercise. He died 17 years ago this month. My nickname for him was Doc-doc Buddy, or just Doc-Doc. (He was a doctor, did you guess that?) I still miss him. But I digress.

Fern is not being the model student these days. She has taken "missing assignments" to new lows, dropping a 95 average on tests to something a lot lower when you factor in zeros for homework grades. Her teachers are more than happy to email progress notes to me, but usually they only remember when I email them first, easier for them to reply that way. They are busy and I understand that. That means I'm the one who needs to remember to write them first.

So, being a programmer, I learned how to program a cron job to email them once each week so I don't have to remember myself. This is the code:

00 12 * * 5 (echo "This is an automated weekly email to check how Fern is doing in your class this week.";echo;echo "Thanks,"; echo "Anne";)|/bin/mail -s "Fern" teachers@middleschool.org

So, what this does is send an email every Thursday at noon to her teachers that says:

This is an automated weekly email to check how Fern is doing in your class this week.

Thanks,
Anne

Pretty cool, huh?

What did you learn today?

Weekend Round-Up

I've been trying to write a weekend round-up post for a couple of days now and stuff keeps getting in the way. Like work.

In This Issue:

• Mr. Clean


• Child Services


• Laundry Queen


• Back to School

Mr. Clean

Last Friday was Day 3 after the teeth got pulled. My poor baby. I feel so bad having done this to Kevin without his full comprehension. Because of his autism, it's hard to explain it to him. He's so independent, he pretty much takes care of himself when it comes to napping when he is tired and eating when he's hungry. So He napped a good part of Wednesday and Thursday and ate very little despite the offerings of food. By Thursday night, he felt well enough to take a shower and by Friday morning he showered again and again and had taken three showers in 12 hours. I'm not really sure why.

I finally got him to swish the salt water in his mouth and not drink it. It took a lot of modeling but finally he got it. He even made his own cups of salt water after that.

The doctor said he'd only need ice on his cheeks for the first 12 hours, but Kevin made his own ice packs through Monday. I guess he knew he felt better with them. I wish he could explain it to me.

Child Services

Saturday morning Dan drove down to rendezvous with his sister to collect Fern since she had spent the week there with her cousin, Rose.

While she was gone I went into her room and got her hamper and collected all the clothes that were on the floor. Then I scraped together all the flotsam and jetsam from the periphery of her room into a pile, you know, that stuff she ignores when she thinks her room is clean. It's hard to ignore when it's in a big pile. All she has to do is sit down in one place and sort through the debris and, voila, her room is clean. But as I did I knew she'd be mad at me for doing it.

Laundry Queen

Saturday I added the laundry I got from The Girl's room to the pile in the laundry room. I got through most of it so there wasn't enough of any one type of clothes left to make a full load of anything. Whew. I even did a few loads of sheets and towels.

But on the other side of getting laundry done, is putting it away. Another chore I'm bad at. The pile on my dresser is so high I can barely see the mirror so I started a new pile on the floor next it. I have too many clothes, I know I do, but I'm reluctant about getting rid of stuff. AM helped me last week get rid of a lot of dresses that don't really fit or are hopelessly out of style. I am always grateful for her help, (always, always, always) and we cleared out a lot of rod space in my closet, but I wish she could have stayed for another hour or so. I need to clear out more to make room for the clean clothes I just washed.

My goal is to get the master bedroom in shape. Soon. I got part of the room cleaned up over the weekend, but now the cleaned-up spot needs vacuuming. Somehow our room collects stuff. Kevin likes to play in there. Like the rest of the house. Sheesh.

Back to School

Monday morning, the culmination of a summer vacation, was the first day of school. Both kids were up and ready on time. I opened the garage doors at 7:20 and Kevin went out to wait at 7:25. And waited. And waited.

Fern's bus information had come in the mail a week before school started but we didn't hear anything about Kevin's bus. I had checked the school's web site and found out his bus would pick him up at 7:31. Because he's on a special ed bus, we usually get a call with the information, not just a letter. Finally over the weekend we got a call from his new driver telling us the same time.

His bus never showed, unless it was way early. Which on the first day of school, I highly doubt. By 8:15 there is still no bus so I started calling around. The guy at the bus lot was very nice, even offered to send a bus to pick him up. I declined. He said he'd talk to the driver and find out when she came by my house and call me back.

I took Kevin to school and waited my turn in the busy office to explain my presence. The new CRI teacher herself came up to get him instead of an aide, so I got to meet his new teacher. She seemed nice, but a little frazzled. I didn't hold it against her.

The bus lot guy did call me back (surprise!) and said the driver said she was at our house at 7:35, only a few minutes late. But I know she never stopped by our house, I was there. I'd remember a big yellow bus pass by. Tuesday morning, we were ready and waiting, and the bus went past our house before it stopped. Kevin ran across the lawn to get on. Now you know, if she really was at our house on Monday, she would have known where to stop on Tuesday. Right?

This morning I tried to ask her where she went on Monday and she dodged the question by saying she was sorry she was late. Arrrgggggg.
 

In Your Face!

Maybe you will remember I posted about Fern and her struggles with Algebra last year. She got D's all year. Just after the fourth quarter started she asked for tutoring, so we invested many dollars in many hours of tutoring. Much of the last quarter was devoted to HSA prep. With the tutoring she managed an 83 on her final, but still a D for the quarter because of missed assignments and, according to her, no grades in the gradebook after they started focusing on the HSA.

The guidance counselor, her algebra teachers, yeah, she had two, but that's another story, and the principal all thought she should repeat algebra, that she couldn't do the work in geometry, didn't understand algebra, yada yada, and since she was only a 7th grader, she had plenty of time to retake it and get the rest of her math in before graduation.

So here we are, on the cusp of a new school year. Fern has been getting ready mentally to be in algebra again, determined to do well. I spoke to the principal about my concerns: Fern absolutely must have a dynamic teacher this year who is going to hold her attention all year so she doesn't get bored, and when she's bored she won't do her work and then receive another low grade. I also tried delicately to imply I didn't trust the teacher, whom she had for most of last year, had graded her fairly, not giving her all possible credit due. How does someone get and 83 and still a D? But, either she ignored my jabs about her employee, or was oblivious to them. (I'd leave a message for the teacher to call me, but instead returning my call, she'd harass Fern in class the next day.)

I was not going to tolerate another year with a teacher like that. So Fern was placed with Mrs Lamb. Fern likes her, she was the teacher who ran the morning HSA prep sessions before school last spring. All will be fine.

(pause for dramatic music)

This week I got a call from her principal: The HSA scores came in and Fern blew it out of the water (my words, not hers). Fern got a very high score, and she is allowed to go on to geometry if she wants to, with the stipulation she will commit to it and work hard. Fern's decision.

The drawback of staying in algebra: boredom, especially in spring quarter when the class is doing HSA prep and she's exempt.

The drawback to going on to geometry: the algebra grade stands. It could, and probably will hold her back from getting into Bowie Summit or Roosevelt (the area's advanced high schools). But the upside is, she can thumb her nose (figuratively, please) at those teachers and counselors who said she couldn't do it.

You go girl! I mean really, go, go do your homework!
 

Project School day

This week Kevin's been in this cycle of crashing as soon as he gets home from his day camp and sleeping until midnight or so, then playing for a couple hours before going back to bed then waking up tired. So last evening I took him to the pool for a couple hours to keep him awake. It worked: he was awake until midnight. I guess I'll need to take him to the pool again tonight after work so he'll stay awake then maybe, hopefully, he'll fall asleep earlier than eleven and he'll get into a more normal cycle and less teenager-like.

While we were at the pool we saw Kevin's classroom aide from the middle school. She came over to me to say hi and tell us her news. She just, like yesterday, got offered a job at the high school and she'll be in Kevin's class. She's very excited because she's wanted a high school placement for a while now and get out of the middle school. I'm excited because it'll be great for Kevin to have her there to ease his transition to a new school and program and she'll already knows him so she can help the classroom teacher learn about him and what's in his IEP.

For a lot of years Kevin got a new teacher every year and would flounder, even regress, until about Thanksgiving while he got use to the new teacher and routines. Kevin did much better at the beginning of the year when he had the same teacher two or more years in a row. Since he's going to high school I couldn't expect anything consistent to help the transition and had to hope for the best, but now he'll be in a new place with a familiar face. I'm very pleased.

 

Snow Day

This morning as I head towards AM's house for our morning walk I hear "Ma'am!" I look around. It's the lady who lives in the house with the pretty back yard. It has gotten so many beautification contest awards they've asked her to stop entering, or so I hear. I stop to answer her and instantly become mosquito breakfast. she tells me to watch out for the fox, she'd just seen it on the side of her yard chasing a squirrel. I need to be careful.

I look around and realize this is the house where I saw the deer running by on Tuesday. So I ask her about them. There are three, and she sees them all the time. They are comfortable in her backyard and often tip-toe back there and lie down. OK, she didn't say tip-toe, but she described how they carefully walk across the street and they live over near the railroad tracks. They come most mornings about this time. Hmm, I've only ever seen them once, and that was Tuesday, so it can't always be this time. At which point I slap at a couple mosquitoes and look around again for the fox and bid this woman a good day.

I meet up with AM and relay the exchange to her. She then tells me schools are closed today. We had some horrific thunder storms roll through yesterday, three separate cells, and a lot of schools are without power, so they closed the whole county. Monday is the scheduled last day of school, but the kids won't be attending. So are they going to make it up on Tuesday? She doesn't know. Later I found out they are not going to make it up, which I'm happy and sad about. They pushed Kevin's graduation ceremony from today to Monday and now he'll miss it. I'm very bummed. (See my husband's blog for pictures of our storm damage.)

We bought thank-you cards for him to give to his teachers. Now I just have to get him to write them out. I hope he can get this last thing done for him before the summer break.

Alphabet Soup

Report card time: Two kids, eleven A's, one B and one D, two honor roll students.

Yeah!