07/04/19, Sunday

What?! I have from 7:15 am to 8:00 am (although students are hanging out in my room, it's when I do IEP meetings etc.) and from 2:40-3:15 (also kids hanging out, meetings etc), plus one period of prep that is guaranteed duty free of student supervision, so, if for example I am asked to work with a student, or cover someone's class, I can say no thanks, or, if I agree I get coverage pay. This is another reason we haven't moved some place warmer. I know I have it good here, I think Massachusetts is the only other state I would consider.

Teaching has never been an option for me but I tend to look at any field in big picture if I can. Teachers have decent retirement if you qualify for it but the work day seems to be shortchanged. Having to grade papers on your own time, etc. my question has always been where does the money go? Our government is not efficient at many things other than writing checks to large groups of people. But in the education dollar where is the money going? I think the national average is 12k per student. I bet in California it is 15k. Multiply 12k times the number of students you teach and you only get a tiny fraction of that in salary. Who gets it? Where is the other 300k. Then multiply that by all of the classrooms in a district and it is mega large money. Just a thought.

Thanks Diane x

More tommorrow

End of Month invoicing and a million other things to achieve today - been working since 6am but will take mum out when I finish at 2.30pm this afternoon. Adventure around the op shops and the offerings of Cobram

Thinking of you all and big hugs

S

Greetings All

AWOL yesterday. I read posts but didn't get my own done.

Got a 3 am phone call that my brother only has hours to live. So my trip may not occur. He can hear and I spoke to him but he cannot answer. Because my SIL can't walk right now, any services will be delayed. So he is still with us and had many visitors today and tried to eat with little success. So it goes.

Thank you Diane for the link to Shel's obit. So glad to read it. What a full life. I will probably do a little buffalo or stink eye goat sculpture for my own benefit.

Took new art to the studio for a show this month. Its not much. Oh well, don't care.

Peps yours is one of so many stories of dedicated excellent teachers wanting to head for the hills. I have never understood why administrators want to dump all kinds of requirements on teachers without giving any thought to how much time it takes of these valuable professionals. We had the same thing in the law firm - management imposing all these new tasks for record keeping and accounting purposes with no thought to the time use. The most valuable asset of any enterprise is the time of skilled professionals. And I had to spend it looking up file codes so management could track phone bills from the conference rooms. Blaaaaaah! Hope you get a new assignment if that's what will work.

Welcome back Ann. Rest up and lets see some writing. I tried to write a sales tax update for our gallery in Haiku form. I don't think anyone got it.

Yesterday I bought a pair of shorts which is the first pair I have had in about 20 years. Its just too hot! They are very baggy and dumpy looking but who cares. My legs look like bags of crisco.

Cheers all. Diane S

Ha, from now on I think all workplace memos should be written in Haiku. Until you said this, I'd forgotten how my teaching partner and I use to share information with each other in Haiku. We even tried sonnets. Those were kind of tricky, so that turned out to be a one time deal.

Today I ate too much.

Chips wine parsley and thyme.

Tomorrow starts fresh.

I too adore chips.

They sing like mythic sirens.

Plug my ears with wax.