March

Abram and I are glad to see the end of winter. March is the end of the winter quarter for Abram. He has his first final for one of his classes next week. Then the following week after that will be the end of his second class. He will then get a 2 week break before he starts the Spring Quarter.
I almost made it without getting the full blown flu, but the first week of March was my turn. I am fortunate that I didn't get the pnuemonia ontop of everything else. I am glad that it is over, but it took me a week to be able to return to work. I lost 6 pounds in 3 days, that should show how bad things were. I am expecting to gain some back because it was lost due to the viral bug.
March is the month of PSSA's at Steele. I think these standardized tests are joke with my students. Whether they guess correctly or fail because they can't read at their grade level, the scores have no meaning. The funny thing is my students qualify on 4 out of 5 of the key points to take the other test. The fifth point that refuses them access to the test is because they are not labeled as MR. You can't label a student who is D/HH as MR because they are not MR. They have academics needs that arise due to language and communication needs.
It is ridiculous because for some of my students I know they will look at the pages of the test and just beging to cry. Some my students are perfectionists and want to do well. It will kill me to watch them look at the papers and look up at me like "Why?" "What is this?". I've worked for the past month on getting them just to color in a circle and guess. They need that practice or I will have another Terra Nova's in the making incident.
Please tell me why I have to give these tests when I feel they give no representation or information that will help provide any kind of support to their education. If it helped in any way, I would be behind, but I and many others know this is just BS.