March:
April:
May:
Notice the 5 bazillion weeks of state testing. Now of course our state is in the process of switching over from one test to the other, but that just means that we'll have to administer both for the next few years.
I also counted up the actual teaching days I get, and tried to discount for these weeks and finals weeks and other weeks that seem to fall away, and I REALLY hope I'm wrong, but I counted about 140 or so actual days of teaching.
Must go cry now.
I hate to disappoint you, but you are exactly right. When we were doing our scope and sequence for algebra I, by the time we accounted for TAKS days, benchmarking days, and EOC testing, we have about 130 days to work with. And do the 10 days after EOC really count? So basically, we have 120 days to teach our curriculum. Less time to teach more material.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who called me today in a panic. She has been at algebra II EOC training all week and sees the need to completely revamp the algebra II scope and sequence, but can't for the life of her figure out how she will fit a full course of algebra II into 120 days.
Good news is we are all in the same boat. We're either all going down together or the standard will be set so low we'll all look like miracle workers.
Waaaaaaa. I either want to break into continual tears at the frustration of it all, or toss up my hands and pick and choose what topics I may have time to do a good job with in that short amount of time. Sheesh, If it's 130 days, then that's basically 10 weeks less of learning time, right (50 days less than the 180 it used to be ...)? Oh my!
ReplyDeleteThat. Is. Awful. I feel like I should be offering condolences.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jason. It looks like it's going to be an "interesting" year.
ReplyDelete