Pat is pissed, and I don’t blame him. But it happens everywhere, here too, only instead of laptops it’s AstroTurf for a football field that was deemed unplayable by the state after we spent $250,000 to fix drainage problems (which obviously didn’t) and forced our homecoming game to be played on our arch-rival’s field. A quarter of our department is leaving this year (seven teachers, only one retirement) as they go to other schools for more money. Good teachers, too. Keepers. We’ve worked all year without a contract, yet we bleat like lambs at anything the board asks of us. They throw money at all sorts of extra-curricular stuff like it’s play money, but when we ask for our measly 4%… We haven’t had a budget pass in five years, and New Jersey has such a smart way of funding all of that stuff anyway.

And Terry’s back and sounding surly too. “The need to make every click and pencil push count has never been more apparent. The need for blogs as a tool to be more ‘efficient’ has never been more necessary. I would like to show that weblogs can be thought of as schools both within and outside of schools.“ That last part is definitely worth exploring…

Maybe we’re all just a bit tired.

Yesterday at the department meeting we started talking about curriculum changes, about the idea of moving toward a full-year junior year English basically so that we can make sure kids pass the HSPA. (One of the things I love about our school is the electives that we can offer, but I’m thinking we’re about ready to kiss those suckers goodbye.) What it really is is an attempt to standardize instruction, reduce the need for staff as section sizes can be controlled, and dumb us down. Anyway, since the committee that had been exploring the ideas wanted to meet interested parties in the summer, I thought, “hey, perfect opportunity to start the department weblog.” So I am, I think, going to try to crank it out before the end of the year. Might be a good time to investigate Blogger Pro with a separate account.

Ah, it’s June.