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Showing posts from February, 2019

Teacher or Facilitator

One of the things that has really changed for me this year is that each day,  after teaching one class of Spanish 1 and 2, I am no longer in charge of the educational objectives or work for my students.  I am a Transition and KAPE teacher/facilitator. What is that? It is a long story.  I worked all last week on this post, only to reread it and find it nothing more than a complaint, and that is not my intention!  So, I saved it, I may want to revisit it, but this is going to be different. Transition is a program where I facilitate the reintegration of students into the "regular" Discipline Alternative Education Program (DAEP) when they have been assigned a second time in a single school year.  I am responsible for ensuring that they are working on their classwork, while also giving them some new skills so that they do not return again.  The program is everything I could have imagined, but my time has been needed elsewhere as well, so I feel like I have let my students do

Back in the Swing

It's hard to write.  Voices in my head (not the crazy ones) keep telling me to wait a day, who reads anyway.  And besides, you reflect just fine on your own .... humm. A few years ago, the great state of Texas decided that all students in alternative placements must keep their regular campus classes.  With that in mind, I added Spanish to my certifications.  When it all took effect it was hard to offer, let's say, all the math classes with a staff of 3 HS math teachers for about 16 different math classes in an alternative setting.  The Adaptive Behavior Center (ABC) housed with my campus also started to offer Spanish, and needed a Spanish teacher.  I started teaching a class period of Spanish to students with emotional/behavioral disorders 4 years ago along with middle and high school math classes AND Spanish at the alternative/discipline school.  Last year, my part of the DAEP was phased out, but I continued teaching Spanish to the students at the ABC and math at the alterna