Changing Daily

Well things have changed once again! I will teaching science six periods a day and I also will be the gifted department chair. The MIX program will go on, we now have busing so the 262 children now in the program will have a ride to school. Mr. B will be the only returning teacher all the rest are new, I leave the rains in his hands. I decided to go with a secure position (Science), as further cuts are coming in October. I will be incorporating technology into my science classroom. 

For music educators it is really getting tough out there, its going to get worse before it gets better. There are layoffs and cut across the entire country. At this point it becomes a matter of survival, right now I’m happy to have a job. I have enjoyed being a music educator but I find at this time in my life I am ready for a change. I love music and being a musician. However, at this point in time having a job and a secure future has become more important. I wish you all luck!

Deb

The future dims

At my last post I was very excited about the promise of the coming year, however, my progress has come across a large hurdle.  The district is in a multimillion-dollar deficit and magnet programs are on the chopping block.  My job as lead teacher has been eliminated and I have been surplused.  My programs transportation has been eliminated and we will receive no funding.  What to do? 

I am fortunate that I have a principal who believes in me and the program, so we are going to get creative.  Luckily I am also certified to teach Science and a teacher has retired so I will be teaching Science half the day and recruiting for the program the other half.  I had the foresight to see that transportation could become an issue so I made sure our students were riding in on ESE buses (they have to run its federally mandated) So my student will still get a ride.  As for program funds we are going to pursue grants and business partners.  

In these tough economic times you need to get creative and be flexible.  It’s a matter of survival!

 

Future Looks Bright

It appears I did something right with recruitment, as we are expecting our program to number around 260 students next year, that up around 90 students.  The program has really taken off and we now seeing the fruits of our hard labor.  We still have technology issues and our experiment with a PC lab has been tenuous, it just doesn’t work for what we do.  In our opinion the Mixcraft software just isn’t as user friendly nor is it as robust as garageband for the entry level 1 students.  We are trying to go back to total Mac labs, as we are suppose to get a technology refresh.  We need to upgrade 60 computers, that’s around $66,000, yikes!  It’s difficult to keep technology working and current in an environment where large budget cuts are a daily occurrence.  It seems are only true limit is the budget.  It appears the school district has all but wiped out any funding for next year.  Of course the national economy is not much better with talk and signs of recession, so private sector grants may dry up too.    Our goal this year is to find alternative ways to fund the program. I am sure many of you are in the same boat as we are.           

Back to School for Me

An update on what’s been happening in my world. Well I’ve decided to take the plunge and go back to school for my doctorate.  I will be going to Nova Southeastern University, with a double concentration in Instructional Technology and Distance Education & Organizational Leadership.  This is in addition to my full time teaching job and my just starting a web design business, oh and did I mention I have a 7 month old daughter.  I like to keep things busy!

If you build it, they will come.

The program that I developed is now in its 4th year and finally is coming into its own.  I started with 6 computers and 20 students one period a day.  Now there are 4 teachers, 90 computers and 172 students, 6 periods a day.  My job has been to not only continue to develop and oversee the program curriculum, but also to recruit students from about 34 elementary schools to come to our school program.  In this district students can apply to attend specialized programs (magnets) and the competition for students is fierce, program funding is based on enrollment.  For next year there are 164 new applicants to the program, plus a returning 148, for a potential enrollment of 311 students.  We have come a long way in just 4 years.  This is due to the quality program we have built.  So what I’m saying is if you design and do things right, people will find out about what your doing and want to be a part of it!

Yeah…It’s up and working

The adventure was a success!  Our school site is up and running.  For those of you following the saga, all files where uploaded to the host site but were not showing on the web.  It ended up being just a matter of moving the files to the public html folder and now it all works.  

Old Dog Can Learn New Tricks

For those of you who read of my dilemma yesterday this is an update, for the rest, this is the story of being a quick study in finding web hosting, ftp uploads, securing a domain name, and getting your website back up in 24 hours or less!To bring you up to speed our techie owned and was hosting our school site on an external server, for what ever reason the hosting company shut him down and we were left with our school site down and domain name held hostage.  My adventure today was to find a host, purchase a new domain, upload our site and make it all happen like yesterday.I purchased a domain from godaddy.com, got hosting from inmotionhosting.com and have spent the better part of the evening trying to get them to talk to each other and work.  I have been able to upload my files to the host site through filezilla (mac users ftp = free)  and I can see them there. However, I can’t get the files to show public via the url.  I know its a simple fix, that I have just missed a “little” step somewhere. In fact its probably just a matter of changing the index.html location.  But it is 11 PM and I am too tired to continue working on the site, I will do better in the morning, I hope.This has been a crash course for me since the technical end of things really aren’t my gig.   I do design and know my way around dreamweaver and some html basics, but when it come to the technical hosting and servers, I’m like a deer in the headlights.  That was until today when I was baptized by fire. Everyday in education is an education. 

Need for Control

Ok, this is for those of you out there who are control freaks. I must admit I am a little bit of one, but for good reason.  The old adage ” If you want something done right do it yourself” applies here.  Due to my design/creativity I had designed my magnet programs web page (MIX) , basically no one else wanted to do it and I like dabbling in web design.  Anyway the school website was just awful and not user friendly, so since mine was “nice” I got the job, lucky me.  I inherited a mess which I have been trying to slowly clean and fix up.  I have a site which is up, but is being worked on as we speak.  For those of you who build and maintain your own sites you know the work this entails, its basically a full time job when you are first setting the site up.  Here is the main issue, due to district blocks (i.e red tape) the techie decided to host the site on an external server with a web hosting company, where he had an account.  All seemed great, I had access to do changes from anywhere.  This was great because it allowed me not to have to be on school site to do changes and uploads.  However, today he came to tell me that for some reason the company shut him down, which means now the school site along with my magnet program site is shut down.  So now in addition to the down time ( which is a problem because application to our program is online and has a deadline of Jan. 31st) we have the issue of the school not owning the domain name. So unless we can buy space from this company and transfer the domain from the techie to us we have a giant mess.  Basically it just caused a heck of a lot of work that could have been avoided had the school maintained the site within house or set up the external account on its own.  I guess what I’m trying to say here is that you need to maintain some control of things and that what seems like a good idea may or may not be.  Things need to be planed out and researched thoroughly.  This is just some advice for those of you starting such a venture, for those of you like me who inherit the problem I suggest trying to get as much background of what’s been done and how things are operating.  If there are issues, then try to correct them as quickly as possible to avoid unnecessary down time.

Mac Vs. PC

Up until a month ago we were a totally mac program. We run 3 labs with 30 computers each, so 90 computers at onetime are in operation.  Our Techie decided that we could run all software and accounts through the network off the server, which totally bogged down the system.  His solution, change the labs to PC, easy fix. So one of the labs was converted to a PC (Dell) lab, the students and teachers are not happy with the change.  Disclaimer the techie said this was the only solution without costing lots of $$$$, and I believed him, my first mistake.Jump forward, I find out from a mac engineer that the techie could have fixed the problem by making some modifications to how the machines and network worked.  It would have taking a lot of work on the techie’s part.  Bottom line, “Don’t always believe the Techie”, especially one that is leaving soon.We are going to try the configuration changes to one of the labs and see if it works. I will let you all know how it goes.  Oh yeah, as of this moment the techie is still breathing  

Back in the Saddle

It’s hard to get back in the swing of things after the long winter break and conference trip, my “in” box is overflowing.  It seems everything needs to be done “yesterday” and everyone feels their need is priority. The day started out with the processing of 12 new applications for the program.  As the lead teacher I have to process the applications, which means pulling student records, making sure the information matches and is complete, transferring the information to a log, making copies of the record, putting a package together for downtown and forwarding the packages.  Before I could finish that I had a parent calling for program information and one wanting a tour. Then two of my teachers sent students to find me because they need some supplies. Another of my teachers who had been at the conference returned to find equipment missing from his room and the wrong mid-terms given to his students. All this before Lunch! Basically, I’m the recruiter, program supervisor, tour-guide, and Secretary all rolled into one.  I know some of you out there are experiencing the same thing today as you return from the conference.  Sometimes it just feels good to vent about just how crazy it is coming back!