Well, here I am… finally. The last month has been very up and down and I haven’t felt like blogging much. I guess I'm whining, and I really hate whining.

Since my school is now a Program Improvement School--based on our AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress)--we’ve had a lot of work thrown at us (as if we didn't have enough already.) Everything seems very disjointed now—I’m sent to countless meetings, I’m working on implementing new mandated activities, and am in general pulled away from my work.  I can’t seem to get things done on time because there’s just too much to do. There are meetings, paperwork, and plans—all part of the “corrective steps” of NCLB. I’m a member of the committee that attends monthly PIS (Program Improvement School) meetings where we get technical support: help in understanding the NCLB mandates, the legal meaning and requirements for PIS (all punitive), the differences between AYP and API (Academic Progress Index), ideas on where to focus efforts (developing English language for our mostly English language learners-um, duh, we know this but how fast can you make someone learn a language), test results analysis, and help in rewriting the school plan.