I'm moving to Rancho!

Things at Vista weren't going well, so the day after school got out, I interviewed and accepted a new position at a different school. It's the second oldest school in Vegas, so they have a lot of history and traditions. Many of the teachers there were students there themselves. In some ways, I feel like the school is more of a "community" than some of the other schools where I've worked.

I'm teaching two entirely different groups of kids this year, so it's been interesting to figure out what works with each group. Both groups are pretty different from kids I've taught before.

• English 1 Honors-- mostly magnet students, very motivated, turn in homework daily, some even ask if they can do additional work because the enjoy the work so much. Most of these kids already have plans for college and careers. Many are involved in one of our three magnet programs- biomedical, medical, and aviation. The students in the aviation program will graduate from high school with an actual pilot's license.
• English 1 RP-- kids who've failed English 1 once, twice, or even three times. These kids STRUGGLE, hate English, have major attendance issues, and some really don't care about school or their education in general. It took a LONG TIME to get these kids to work with me, but once I won their trust, things went pretty well. For the most part, the kids were causing most of the problems were expelled for reasons that had nothing to do with my class or just stopped coming to school overall.

The first few weeks were completely blissful, but reality soon set in. Our school hasn't met test score requirements in YEARS, so there's a lot of work to do. We got a new supervisor, who required that we submit weekly lesson plans, which is just extra paperwork (typing up lesson plans in a way that someone other than me can understand them) none of us were really interested in doing.

Everytime Belisa and I start to feel that things at Rancho are too much, we call some old friends from Vista and meet up for dinner. That never fails to make us feel better. Things there continue to get worse, so I definitely feel like I made a good decision. It's a longer commute and longer hours, but it's much less stress. That's what I need in my life. Less stress!!