As I said in this post last week, my principal (the Prince) really pushed back at me last week when I challenged him on our NCLB status and some other things. On Monday we had someone from the district come out to talk to us in very clear, positive language about our status as a 6th year school, and what that means for us. And oddly enough, it doesn’t mean that much.
The district is unlikely to fresh-start us, as they have done it a few times with uncertain results and much bad publicity. So for us, restructuring means coming up with a plan to make changes and improve results, and, well….we are doing that already. And the district is going to support us along the way.
Then today at our meeting some rumors spread that we don’t actually have to change our literacy program (um, what literacy program?!) and we don’t have to do reader’s and writer’s workshops until next year. People were getting confused and concerned and I could see all the work we did last year (to get a book room set up, and get people learning how to assess reading levels, and use leveled books) going up in flames.
Then Wonder Woman’s replacement (I haven’t come up with a nickname for her yet) got up, and in three short minutes, in a quiet, gentle voice, made it clear what the plan is and put everything to rights. People clapped for her and one teacher commented to another, “I like her already!” When she sat down next to me, I whispered, “well done!” and I meant it.
Phew, our efforts to improve our reading program were not torpedoed.
And our test scores did improve, even though they didn’t improve by the 10% mandated by NCLB.
So things just might be okay.
Elbows, knees, dreams 
I’m glad Wonderwoman’s replacement handled things so well. How about calling her the “Teacher Whisperer?” 😀
Or you could just call Her “Awesome McCool”
You guys are always so helpful.
:o)