I hate my job...

Incase any of you were wondering... I hate my job. I hate that I have a practically new set of kids and almost nothing to work with. I hate that my students don't want to learn anymore, and I hate all the bueracratic BS that makes it so that all the BD kids in the district are being shuffled into my classroom at the same time. I hate that I had an observation today, and that I didn't get to teach any of my academic lessons because behavior was so bad. I hate that I have to send home nightly behavior reports, and I hate myself for not having the energy to call parents tonight.

I hate that I don't feel stable enough to get my life back in control, and that I am getting myself so upset about school that I haven't really been dealing with my personal issues for the past few months. Mostly though, today I just hate my job.

New Students

They keep sending me new kids. It's 2 weeks away from standardized testing, and they just keep plopping them in my room. I officially have 9 students now, and by law I top off at 10 as a teacher of BD students. Two weeks ago I got a new student, last Friday I got another one, and I was told yesterday by a BD teacher at another Newark school that he just signed all the paperwork to send another kid to me.

My new ones are:

Sean, a 4th grader who is much smaller than all of my other students, but has the best social skills of any of my kids.

Then there's Nadia, another 4th grader, and a GIRL! My students don't have a lot of interactions with female students, and don't generally know how to handle those interactions when they do happen... so she's already caused a huge stir in the room, besides that puts her in competition with the only other girl in my classroom, Tyler.

And tomorrow, it is rumored that I will be getting a 6th grade boy who has been home-schooled by his Aunt for the past 6 months because he had too many conflicts to keep him in a classroom. I try my best not to be swayed by what I hear before a student arrives, but I hear what I hear.

I do not have any IEPs for my new students, nor any other pertinent information.

My room is starting to fall apart already with the two new students. Tuesday was my first REALLY bad day in a long time, and today was a staff development day, but I just hope that I can get my classroom management together enough to allow these changes to move my students forward, rather than shove them behind.

New students lead to new challenges, and I have a lot of them ahead of me.