The Roller Coaster

It has been awhile since I have written, I am sorry. Life has been crazy filled with much happiness, stress, anxiety, etc. The Reading state test was this past Tuesday. It feels amazing to have it over! Now it is a waiting game to see who passes and who gets to take it again. I never want to go through preparing students for the state reading test again and I definitely do not want to have to go through the days of testing the students again! I cannot properly articulate all the work, stress, and anxiety that went into preparing the kids for the assessment which took some as long as 11 hours to complete. It was so hard to watch them fight through the test using every strategy possible to dissect the passages and answer the 52 questions. The month leading up to the test pushed me to the limits with patience and perseverance. It involved many sleepless nights and crazy dreams involving kids passing and failing. The whole school was stressed and included a big blowout between my principal and I for calling out sick one day.

My students are beginning to have more and more issues. I had a student run away from home, and another come to school hung over, this all toils with my emotions as there is only so much I can do. Many of my 5th graders, some who are already 14, are becoming teenagers and beginning to act out only due to hormones and age. It can be hell in my classroom!

The past couple of months have included some highlights, including my new baby girl, Katy, a wonderful chocolate lab puppy. I bought her when she was 6 weeks old, she weighed 8 lbs, now she is 10 weeks old and weighs 17 lbs. She has been a wonderful companion! I also got rid of my Volvo as it needed a new $3,100 engine that there was no way I could afford! I bought a truck instead. I am very happy in the truck and it is nice to know that everything is covered under a warranty if anything should happen. The volvo caused a great amount of stress and was a financial burden to keep fixing.

I am attaching a lot of pictures, I do not have much more time to write, but the pictures can suffice for now. The pictures are of my classroom, my class preparing for the test, and Katy. Sorry for the poor quality, the pictures all come from my phone.

Best,
Robert