Meetings are fun!

Today was our first official day back at work. I’ve been back a few days on my own, setting up my classroom and kind of puttering around, but today was the first “real” day. We had our district convocation (ie: pep rally) and staff meetings. We even got some really good news, which I can’t go into right now.
Overall, today was good. I’m the History department “coach,” so it was my job to run our department meeting this afternoon. We went over some test score information, looked for some trends, and did some introspection as to the strengths and weaknesses of our program. We came up with some solid ideas as to how to address some of our shortcomings, gave ourselves a few pats on the back for our accomplishments, and basically mentally prepared for the year ahead. While we still have considerable work to do, I think we’re heading in the right direction. And though it might sound like it here, I’m not really talking about improvement in test scores. That’s certainly an issue, of course, but what we’re working toward here is student achievement. We’ve got kids who aren’t making it, and not just in History. Kids who are falling by the wayside, and we need to find a way to reach as many of them as possible, which we can only do if we actually put names to the test scores. I think we can do it, if we are willing to make the effort.