New Happenings at Heart of Mary!!!

We are getting a school-wide discipline system put in place over the course of the next few weeks. I think we are going to try out different segments of it for the rest of this semester, and then probably hit the ground running with it after Christmas break. What does this mean??? All the teachers will be on the same page, and it means that we will have DETENTIONS!!!!!!

Somehow, some way, my classes have settled back down. I'm still not really sure what made them get all riled up for that month and a half (and I'm even less sure of what has gotten them to settle back in at least a bit). Part of it may be that my 8th grade class just succeeded in having a class average on my last test that was well under 50%. I have a few make-up tests left to grade, but it is going to stay in the vicinity of 45% I think.

I have offered my 8th graders the opportunity to have an outdoors class on Fridays when we can come in and function well from the outset of class three days in a week. My 7th graders are going to be able to tell me how to shave my facial hair for the rest of the semester if they can do the same thing for five school days in a row. The poor 6th grade class has been slipping quite a bit towards the example that the higher grades have been setting for them. So a couple of the teachers (including yours truly) has come down pretty hard on them. As of right now, both 6th and 8th grades will be having silent class periods until we can successfully do it. Today my 8th grade class sounded exactly how a classroom should sound. A few comments, questions, and conversations were going on about the work and assignments, but nothing else. Unfortunately, I had told them to be silent, not just to be appropriate. So, we're going to keep it up until we get it right.

Well, I'm exhausted. I'm either going to bed now (9:15) and waking up at 3:30 or 4, or I'm going to try to stay up another couple hours and get up around 6. I think I'm going to opt for the first option. So, good night!!

PS - If you send me an email or some other form of communication and don't hear back from me in a day or two, send a follow-up because that probably means I forgot or didn't see the initial email/call/whatever it was.