Embrace Challenge!

Things to consider at the end of the school year

1. Survey your students
   1. End of term opinions
   2. Future goals sheet
   
   
   
2. Where to put objects



3. Who will be using your room over the summer? Will you be in the same classroom next year?



4. Future contact information.



5. Don't wait until the last hour of the last day to get signatures you need for departure. If you have to get the librarian's signature, maintence's signature, the tech person's signature, the supply room person's signature, start early. And don't piss them off if they can't help you the very second you need their attention.

End of term opinions

At the end of each term- when you are saying goodbye to kids, it is a good time to get feedback from them. Personally I valued what my students told me. They shaped my teaching abilities far more than any adult colleague did.

Questions to ask: (suggested, of course you should make your own choices)

1. Course based
2. Teacher based
3. Open ended

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Course based

The course:

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Teacher based

check all that apply and feel free to add comments of your own:

Open ended

1. Please fill in the sentence:  I would recommend a friend to take a class taught by Ms. T because



2. Please take some time to describe what you think are the qualities of an excellent teacher (don’t necessarily think of how you would want to change Ms. T, just describe your ideal teacher.)



3. Now, of these qualities, does Ms. T have any of them?  If so, please describe how she fits your description.



4. What should change in order to make this class better for your needs?



5. How should Ms. T change to better meet your needs?



6. Tell how you think the parts of the course should be graded.  Include how much weight you would give to homework, laboratory reports, mini-lab write-ups, quizzes, tests, projects, extra credit. How much weight should the final have?



7. Please add any comments or suggest questions that should have been asked on this evaluation:

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Future goals sheet

The point of a future goals sheet is so that you have some documentation to look at when students come to you a year or two later asking for a letter of recommendation.

Of course, at the time we have the students we can't imagine there ever being a time when we could not think of something amazing to say about the student...but after another 160 kids have gone through your classroom, you might have a fainter memory.

So one thing you can do is ask students to fill out a brief info sheet so you can look them up when they ask for the letter of rec.

I also highly recommend you ask students to give you an information sheet when they ask for a letter of rec, something similar to a resume so that you can write a sincere, authentic letter of rec.

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Example of compontents of a student future goal sheet:

Term, Year , Sample High School, name of course                                                                  

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It's the end of the year, where do I put all of the crap I've collected for the last 9 months?

• Student documents
• Teacher documents
• Teaching documents
• Objects

Student documents

You must respect students' privacy. If you have any documents such as copies of referrals, phone calls home, information sheets, and grades first find out if you have any legal obligations for holding onto any of the documents. Some schools expect you to hold onto grading documents for 5 years, others don't need anything beyond what you give them before you leave for summer.

If you plan to get rid of student documents, shred everything before recycling the paper. What we may think is nonsensical information, may actually be able to be used for identity theft, so be responsible with your students' information and respect their privacy.

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Teacher documents

If you don't already have a filing system outside of the classroom, start one at home. Take a folder, label it with this school year's date, and put your teacher documents in it. These could be copies of your evaluations, copies of professional development things that are worth saving, or other important papers you may need in the future. Common documents you should place somewhere you can easily find them are:

• your credential
• copy of hiring papers
• copies of evaluations
• union contract document
• copy of any financial papers related to teaching- receipts of purchases, insurance documents
• documentation of professional development- copy of workshop flier, card the host signs to verify your attendance (if applicable), grade reports for credits you've earned after your credential was issued, notes taken during a workshop that would verify your attendance, certificates of attendance or completion

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Teaching documents

Hopefully everything you used in your classroom is documented on a computer. If it is not your computer, transfer all of the files onto a CD or flash drive so you have a copy you can store at home. Do not expect the computer that is in your classroom this year to be the same computer you get to use next year. You may never see this computer again so make sure you have personal copies of all documents that you have been storing on a computer at school.

If you have extra worksheets that you plan to use again, hang onto them. If you plan to revise the worksheet, keep one copy and recycle the rest. Trust me, having multiple years of worksheets piling up in filing cabinets does not do your mental health any good or the environment. Let them be free and rejoin the other wood atoms at the recycling center.

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Teaching objects

Take home all personal books or teaching materials that you purchased. Do not trust they will still be in your classroom when you return. Do not trust that the filing cabinet you have things in in your classroom will still be there the following fall. I found one filing cabinet I had stored school based documents in sitting outside in the rain when I returned in the fall. That was fun...those were documents to be used toward our accreditation. For some reason, it was too difficult to put the filing cabinet back in the classroom after cleaning the floor that summer...so the cabinet sat outside for anyone to visit, which they did!

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Not that you should have to rent a space for school based objects, but if you think something could go "poof" during the summer, put it in a storage unit for the summer (unless you have a garage or back yard that can store the objects.) Our school was renovated during the course of two summers. Numerous objects disappeared during the first summer. These are objects we would not expect anyone to want or even care about, but for some reason, they disappeared. That second summer, I rented a storage space so that all of the biotech equipment I had spent the year acquiring was actually available in the fall. Nothing is worse than putting time into acquiring objects to have them then disappear over the summer. It is unfortunate that we can't trust everyone who works at a school, but in my experience, we couldn't. If there was an object that had any value, I put it in storage or took it home. Leaving balances over the summer so they could be repaired was one of my biggest frustrations. It was as if we were inviting people to come and steal them.

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Yes, I agree that if the school paid for something, it should stay at the school. However, if the object stays at school and consequently is stolen, it is better for you to sign out with your administration that you are hanging onto the object during the summer than to risk losing it. When you get your curriculum into a routine, having to change it because equipment is stolen is the wrong reason to change.

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Who will be using your room over the summer? Will you be in the same classroom next year?

• One thing you can count on is unpredictablity. You may be assigned to the same classroom in June, but when you come back in August you are now suddenly in a different classroom. Plus your schedule changed...but that is for a different discussion. Do not leave anything in your classroom you will miss when it is stolen.

• Expect other teachers to raid your classroom over the summer. These could be teachers at your school or at neighboring schools. If your room is open for maintenance to clean, it is also open for anyone to visit.

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• If your classroom is being used for summer school expect all of your extra paper, pencils, scissors, pens, rulers, or just about any office supplies to disappear. Students resent having to be at summer school. They don't know you and therefore don't think that taking one of your objects is disrespecting you. They just see a freebee and are going to take advantage of the situation.



• If your room is being used for summer school, expect desks to be written on when you return. See if you can arrange for the maintence crew to redo your room before you come back in the fall.

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• Expect the furniture you took time to acquire and took care of to show up in someone else's classroom. So be mentally prepared to have your pristine desks whose legs all work to be in a different classroom when you come back to school. Expect your trash can that did not have gum stuck to all sides of it, to be somewhere else. Be mentally prepared to come back to a classroom that does not contain the high quality furniture you left it with in June. It may be purely accidental, or it may be because a teacher who spent the summer working at school felt she deserved your objects. Even objects with your name on them can have the tape removed. If it is comfortable, be paranoid enough to engrave your name on objects you purchased that you expect to stay from one school year to the next. That won't guarantee you will still have access to the object when you return in the fall, but at least you can ask the person who now has the object why they are using your object.

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Future contact information

• Don't assume students you like will be back at school next year. If you think you will want to keep in touch with a student, get their contact info before they leave. Most students who leave school don't know they are moving until right before their parent(s) say, "We're outta here." So they may not know in June that they won't be there in August.

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• Don't assume teachers will be returning. Teacher turnover is tremendously high. Plus the district may make changes over the summer. If there is a colleague you like and want to keep in touch with, make sure you get his/her contact info before the school year ends.

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• You may want to make your own business cards to hand to students or colleagues. Only give out information you are comfortable sharing. I would not give anything too personal to students- name and email address are usually sufficient. You can now buy blank business card sheets at an office supply store, so if you want a dozen student cards and a dozen colleague cards, it should not cost a fortune.

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