dcps, wtf?

no, no end of year posts… still, i know. some are written, some are still fermenting. but i am so peeved at dcps at this moment that even though i have an ass ton of work to do, some for summer school, some for grad school and some for this thing called my life, that i am going to rant instead.

so first, i am told by central office and my school’s summer site coordinator that i am teaching general first grade. scary, but sweet. then i realize at midnight the day before gen ed training that i have two conflicting letters, one for gen ed, one for esy, the even more bastard, red headed step child in the dcps family. sure. so i go to the gen ed training, just in case. no one can give me an answer. finally at 6 pm that day, down town confirms that i am teaching esy at ludlow-taylor, which is down the street from my school. ok, fine. the j.o. wilson esy kids are slated to be there. ok, sure. show up for training the next day (and let me just say that the gen ed people had dcps reps checking people in, and oh, catered lunch and breakfast, and a motherfing harpist. we had chaos and no food.). show up friday to set my room up, the sped summer coordinator is out, so the principal helps us divy up the kids. i am all set to have the early childhood kids, which consists of two of kids from my home school, both of whom would certianly recognize me and one of whom i will have next year. perfect. scared to death since i havent taught this population and have never in my life changed a diaper.

but my fears were quite in vain. i ended up with two 8 year olds and two 10 year olds, for whom i could only guess their disabilities. one was ld, at least. one may have been ed and mr. great. i winged it today like it was no one’s business. even though i made a point of telling the coordinator that none of the j.o. wilson kids made it, she did not have it resolved and blamed it on transportation. j.o. was no supposed to be an esy site, but it ended up getting kids from other schools and ours were set to be at ludlow. sure.

go up to j.o. to get some more stuff and possibly try to get ieps. and lo, my class plus two more ec kids showed up. and their normal teacher ended up taking them even though she is not working summer school. i tried calling the summer coordinator, but she didnt pickup. actually it sounded like she picked up and hung up. hopefully the other teacher gets through since we agreeded that i should be at j.o. with our kids, and particularly the kids i will have next year, especially since there is no staff for them, rather than down the street at ludlow, which is over staffed anyway. omg. why did i prep a whole day for the wee ones? i why bother? i dont even know what the 4th grade learning standards are, let alone what is appropriate for 4th graders in sped with unknown disabilities and levels. i want to scream.

and i am surprised why? i should know better. even though you cant make this shit up, i should know they will f-up in any and every possible way. my best friend described it as being on a reality tv show where they set you up to fail… “we told her she’s teaching early childhood. what she doesn’t know is she’s teaching 4th graders! let’s see what happens when we let them loose!” i’m not even certified to teach past the 3rd grade!

now that i’ve vented, perhaps i can get one assignment for class done and find my paintbrushes so i dont have to buy all new ones for this painting class i signed up for. gah. it’s 3 something and i need a beer.