Was she crying?

I answered this question about 50 times today...

About 5 minutes into the start of the day, my principal comes on the intercom to announce that we have received our 8th grade TAKS reading scores. 99% passing and 75% commended... she was so excited! Of course the kids misread the excitement in her voice (because she was talking so fast it and uneven) as crying and as soon as she signed off they all had very confused looks on their faces. It's hard to explain to a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds why numbers like that are exciting to adults. I tried, but I don't think I got the message across to them. Most adults not in the education field probably wouldn't understand either. It's a kind of cult we have...

We have benchmark testing and analysis all this week. It's good in the sense that it gives me time to catch up on grading, but bad because I have to prep 15 different reteach activities, will eventually have to grade 125 analysis packets and have to deal with the less than subpar scores that are normally earned on these benchmarks (Last year the district average was around 35% passing, this year it's around 45%). I'm expecting even worse this time around because they just had 10 days off. Testing after a long holiday is just about the worst idea ever. Ugh.

I only have 27 more instructional days until TAKS, and I'm forced to give up 5 of those for benchmarks. The last 10 of those will be used for our "Olympic Games" (aka 2 week TAKS review)... so I really only have about 10-12 more days to finish out my curriculum. We haven't even started probability yet, but I'm not panicked. Nope... not me. Forget the fact that my kids came back to school today acting like a bunch of #$&%%)*@# and we really weren't very productive. It took about all of my energy not to yell at them or break down in tears. Here's hoping my kids won't be asking each other the question that I answered so many times today...

10 weeks til summer break....