It's ALIVE.............

Yes, the blog is alive again. I have been absent for quite some time. Actually I have been busy for quite some time. For some reason this school year has been particularly busy. The Christmas holidays are beginning to roll around and things are actually beginning to ease up a little. I suppose that I might address some of the goings on in my recent world later. First and foremost, yours truly was selected as Outstanding Teacher at Brook Avenue Elementary School for the 2008-2009 school year.

Don't believe me! Follow this link to the Waco ISD website.

More later!

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Picture Monday, September 8, 2008

I know this is not my normal Picture Monday post. This is the kind of post that happens when you're trying to get into the swing of things again and there are some really fun things going on in the news.

Recently the Waco ISD school board voted to close G.L.Wiley Middle School due to receiving an Unacceptable Rating from the Texas Education Administration (TEA) for 5 years in a row.

State To Waco ISD

School Board Meets

Board Votes to Close

Restraining Order

Board Votes Again

Judge Closes Wiley

It seems that the moment the school board voted to close the school a group brought suit against the district. If not at that moment, it was pretty close. Long story short, the district had to delay the closing for a week and then the court gave the green light to go ahead with the closure. Now to the Picture Monday part.

Below is a picture of the school that I took last spring in front of G.L. Wiley. Maybe it was a good thing the school was closed.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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What's Your Number?

Living the life of leisure as I do during the summer I have lots of time. Often, I spend this time on the Internet and watching movies on TV at the same time. Yeah, I know it's rough, but someone has got to do it.

Last night I was watching "Task Force" with Gary Cooper. During the movie I was on the Internet when I came across an interesting web-site. The name of the web-site is "What Does Your Phone Number Spell?" It pretty much does what you think it does. Type in any phone number and it spits out all of the possible combinations. The 7 letter mnemonic for the Waco ISD Department of Elementary Education phone number 755-9523 is 7559 LAD. I suppose that one is appropriate. When I tried the number 755-9568 which is the WISD Department of Deaf Education I got an eight-letter mnemonic that seemed oddly appropriate, 7559 LOUD. And this interesting eight-letter mnemonic 7559 GAIN belongs to the department of Accountability and Instruction.The movie is over and Gary Cooper survived World War II again.

Mike Rowe and "Dirty Jobs" is next. We'll post and then get ready for class. Today I have my first summer class. I suppose I will be doing something useful today.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a

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Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

The End of An Era-Sort Of

Yesterday was the culmination of something that began 282 calendar days ago; August 28th to be exact. Yesterday was the last day of school for the students in Waco ISD. They attended 177 days of school this year. During this time my class went on 5 field trips. We went to the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University twice, the Hippodrome Theatre once, Cameron Park Zoo once, and to Skate World. For each of these field trips we were able to go to Cameron Park to play and have a picnic lunch. We had a grand year and it was hard to see it end.

Several of the students at school yesterday must have thought that school was already out. We had several running in the lower hall this morning. I had to remind several Kindergartner's and 1st graders that we still had rules to follow in school. After that they all settled down and were pretty good. Considering that it was the last day of school my class was very good today.

I did notice though that over the past several days many of my students that I have had for the past 2 years were being especially "clingy." I overheard one of the girls reminiscing about the things we did in Pre-K last year. It's really interesting to hear a 6 year old reminiscing about "old times."

Tuesday afternoon at dismissal I had 2 of my girls left. I had both in Pre-K last school year. I asked them both what they were going to do next year since they would have a different teacher instead of me. Almost immediately they both said, "Be bad." Hmmmm!!! I hope they misunderstood and thought I asked, "How will next year be without me?"

© 2008 Barry T Horst
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It's Always A Learning Experience

I have been in the field of education for 22 years. In that time it has never ceased to amaze me the things I hear from the kids. Often times they will be brutally honest. Other times, they are showing their shear innocence. Many times, they end up teaching me that in many ways their lives are vastly different from mine and the way I grew up. You see, I teach at the school in town that encompasses the largest subsidized housing in the city within it's attendance zone. Our attendance zone also has the lowest Socio-Econimic Standard (SES) in the district.

For instance, I will never forget last year when one of my students saw my wife one day and asked if she was my girlfriend. I said, "No! She is my wife." Then the student wanted to know what a "wife" was. I tried to explain, but in their world "Daddy didn't have a wife, Daddy had a girlfriend."

Also last year, I had the student that announced she wanted to be in gang when she was older because her older brother was in gang. Wow! And she was 5 years old at the time. I also had her in my class this year. I haven't heard a mention of a gang at all this year. But I do know that her step dad is not in the picture now and the family has moved from the nearby subsidized housing to another area. Hopefully, she and the family will be able to live in a better environment.

This year has been eye opening also. I remember an assignment I gave my class a few months ago. I asked them to take a piece of drawing paper and draw their house. After all students were finished I asked them to bring their pictures to the carpet and we would look at and discuss them. I got to this one little fella that raised his picture and showed the class a large black box that had been divided into many smaller squares. I asked what the squares were and he proceeded to explain that "....this is the jail where my Daddy is. I went to see him this weekend!" A few days later this student's older sister in middle school came to me to ask if I would write a letter to help get their Dad out of jail. She came to me because The Dad had met me before on a visit to school to discuss his son's behavior. This same boy was absent on the day after Memorial Day. When I asked if he was sick he said he had been to Mexico. I never heard, but have since wondered if Dad got out of jail and has gone back to Mexico.

Yes, that has hit our school very hard also. The teacher next door to me has lost two students this year because one of the parents has either been deported or has otherwise had problems with documentation and couldn't get back in the country.

Please visit Rogers Online for Mandy's post from Friday, May 30. It will give a little more insight to what I am speaking of.

Last Friday after school I left my truck running in the school drive as I went in to get something I left. I left it running so that it would get cool. (No it was not going to get stolen. I left it running but I didn't leave the keys in. I have remote start with a safety interlock.) Anyway, one of the older students noticed the condensation dripping from the AC and thought it was oil. She comment that my truck was leaking oil. Then she said, "All our new cars always leak oil like that."

On a good note; it appears that our campus will be Academically Acceptable on our latest TAKS scores this year. That is good because everyone at our campus, students included, have worked very hard this year to remove the stigma of "Academically Unacceptable."

Congratulations Brook Avenue Elementary!

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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My Summer Vacation, Sort Of

When I became a teacher people told me I became a teacher for three reasons; June, July, and August. I would laugh and reply that it wasn't true because school generally began in the middle of August and teachers had to report before then.

Well, the State of Texas in it's infinite wisdom decided last year that school should not start before the last week of August but schools still had to meet the required 180 days. I guess you can tell what that means for most schools now. Since they can't start until the end of August , most schools have to go into the month of June unless they have cut out some holidays through the year. Waco ISD's last day for students is June 3rd and for teachers it is June 4th.

When the new school year begins teachers will have to report on August 18 and students will report on August 25. Now I know that most of you will say that still gives me most of June and August off and all of July. Not true. You see our district offers summer training opportunities for all staff. While this training is not mandatory it is strongly encouraged. Several campuses will begin a new campus climate program called TRIBES. Also, the district has adopted a new Math program and my campus will phase in a new reading program. All of this requires training. So for my summer enjoyment today I scheduled 51 hours of training during the month of July.

So for all of those who think a teacher becomes a teacher because of June, July, and August; you can tell them I became a teacher because of 3 weeks in June, 2 weeks in August, and not much of July.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
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Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.

Let's Go Down The Road Again

Chris and I were running errands yesterday. As we were driving to and from we began discussing the various bond elections that area school districts had over the weekend. Waco ISD, where I work, passed a large bond election to build new schools and remodel aging facilities. This has been needed and will certainly be appreciated by all staff, students, parents, and community members. It is always nice to be proud of your local schools and your place of employment. Over the course of several years the district will build new schools, remodel some, and combine others in an effort to bring more cost efficiency to the district. I look forward to this time as an exciting time to be with the district.

Now back to the conversation I had with Chris. Chris asked about University High School and I told her that they would build a new University High at another location and then University Junior High would relocate to the old high school. I then stopped and corrected myself saying, "I guess it is University Middle School now. They don't call them junior highs anymore, they're all middle schools."

This prompted me to recall how the names of schools and other institutions change with time and our perceptions of the older names. For instance, "Grammar Schools". I'm sure they taught more than just grammar, yet they were called 'grammar school" and not math or social studies schools. Another term from long ago was having a "liberal education". Nowadays that would upset many conservatives because you would expect someone is being indoctrinated with a socially and politically liberal ideas. But years ago it simply meant getting a "well rounded" education.

Another good old fashioned name was "sanitarium" which denoted a health retreat or hospital. Nowadays I think of a sanitarium as being an "insane asylum". Of course the "insane asylum" was ubiquitous many years years ago. Now we have "psychiatric hospitals" or other less offensive terms.

Again, this is just another example of how I can start down the road to school and end up at the insane asylum.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
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Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.