Tuesday, I Throw Out The Trash

Today was the second day in the school.

We spent the early morning getting a talk regarding CSAP scores and what they mean. (CSAPs are the federally mandated school accountability tests given to students each year to determine their progress in their subjects, primarily Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.) Apparently, Highland School District, in which I work, has struggled some in the past in demonstrating that students are proficient in their Writing, Reading and Math. To be honest, this is not all that surprising, given the number of students that are receiving Free and Reduced Lunches and are Migrant Workers.

However, the District, which includes only three schools, Highland Elementary, Highland Middle and Highland High School (my school) has made a pronounced effort to improve the quality of their teaching recently and was just today pronounced as a district that met AYP, the federally mandated "Annual Yearly Progress." For a down and out district, this is a major accomplishment.

After our talk, we had about 2 hours to do what we wished. I met with Jill, the Technology Teacher from last year, to talk about all of the crap in my room. Together, we went down to the Principal's office to talk with Randy Ward, who runs the place. He gave me full permission to throw stuff away. "If you don't need it and Spencer (The IT Guy) doesn't want it, throw it away!"

With Jill's help, I started piling stuff in the hallway for the janitorial crew to cart away. What a mess!

There was an ancient plotter stuck in the corner of the room. It hasn't worked in years and the last time it did work, it apparently blew up and sprayed ink all over the floor. Out it went.

There were 12 cases of the old green and white lined dot matrix continuous feed paper, 14 inches wide. I will bet money that there isn't a printer in use within a 30 mile radius of the school that uses that paper anymore. Out it goes (to the recycle bin).

There is a copy of an old Apple drawing program called Sketch or something like that. Copyright date was 1989. Out it went.

There was a whole shelf full (about 12 feet of shelf space) of boxes of computer programs. Most of them were strange, like "The Love and Relationship Test," or "Religions of the World." The weird thing, though, was that THERE WASN'T ANYTHING IN THEM! Box after box of nothing but box! Out they went.

There was approximately 30 shelf feet of piles of Xeroxed typing lessons, all stacked up nice and neat, with little tape labels. Typing hasn't been taught in the room for years. I recycled the paper and tore off the tape.

Apparently, someone had once upon a time, long, long ago, had to teach an Environmental Science/ Agricultural Economics class in my classroom, because there was a whole shelf full and two drawers full of books and pamphlets and study sheets of this stuff. All of it dated in the late 1980's. I threw it all away.

There are also boxes and boxes of Technology Crap. Old mice, old joysticks, old steering wheels, old robotic arms, old discs, old floppies, old cables, old printers, old user's manuals. None of it can be used. Most of it, I am throwing away.

Yikes!

In the afternoon, we had another presentation by an outside speaker regarding CSAP and Writing. He gave us a walkthrough of how the CSAPs are graded and showed us writing samples and grades and numbers and stuff. CSAPs and Writing appears to be a HUGE thing. Guess I'll have to make my kids write...