Back-to-school night

The rant's gonna be short today; this is one of those days that try me.

I have a reading meeting at 8:00 this morning. I have to bring all "data, instruction, curriculum and assessment" materials to this meeting. "Data, instruction, curriculum and assessment" is the new mantra this year. Last year it was "contractuality and accountability." Is contractuality even a word?

Anyway, in this meeting, I'm supposed to explain what all the material means to my principal. See, I'm the reading coordinator at my school. Great job. I love it. Really. I mean it.

That's another thing you don't hear too much about. The unsaid demand that you run a club, sit on a committee and volunteer for other jobs. Yes, I get an extra $1000 a year to be the reading coordinator, but the thing is, if I didn't do these extra things, I wouldn't be considered a "team player." Just last year, another teacher's contract wasn't renewed (which is a nice way to say she was canned), and one of the reasoned cited was that she didn't get "involved" enough with the school. Meaning she hadn't started any clubs (no pay for that) or sat on any committees (no pay for that either). These things aren't part of our contract, and they actually take away from the time we could be spending at school working on student work, grading papers, lesson planning, speaking with parents, etc. I think student clubs are great. We need committees for different reasons. What I get frustrated with is how it's just another expectation of all teachers to participate in these extra activities.

Did I tell you the meeting is only 15 minutes long? Yep. Oh, and did I tell you we only got our students properly placed three days ago? So I don't really have any data, other than the standardized test scores that placed the kids in the program in the first place. We all know how accurate those test scores are, don't we?