We find ourselves at the end of school for 2008-2009.  I know I’m pretty relieved to be done.

What were your biggest successes this year?  What were the things that didn’t go as well as you hoped?

I’ll go first:  I ran a lesson for Black History Month based around the old brown eyes/blue eyes plan.  It was pretty cool to see how the kids reacted to a form of simulated discrimination.  I think it showed them how stupid bigotry is.

I also think that-potentially-the student weblog I created could turn into something really great in future years.   

As for the bad, I think I didn’t do a great job of balancing work and college.  Sometimes one got robbed to pay for the other, as far as time and resources are concerned.

I ran a lesson on World War I at the end of the year that was pretty mediocre in retrospect.  It was sorta slap-dash.  I also didn’t do a good job of including higher-order thinking activities either.

Okay, your turn:  What were the best and worst parts of your professional year?

A school administrator wrestled a gun-toting former NYPD cop to the ground Tuesday after the crazed dad barged into a Rockland County school, furious his son got the swine flu, cops said.

Schools Superintendent Ken Mitchell grabbed the weapon away from Peter Cocker after taking him down in his office in South Orangetown Middle School in Blauvelt.

Okay, Mitchell is officially a bad-ass.  Think anybody is gonna mess with the Superintendent now?

We do and it’s sorta like every other thing we implement:  half-assed with no follow through.

I was just curious if anybody else worked with it and what you thought of system.  If you’re not running PowerSchool, does your district work with another grading/attendance program and how do you like it?

I’m just curious.

At Penn Hills High School this morning, Chief Burton said, a student was walking up and down a hallway, using a cell phone. School policy permits students to have cell phones but not to use them during school except in emergencies, Chief Burton said.

A Penn Hills police officer told him to put the phone away and go to class.

“The kid refused to listen,” Chief Burton said. “The officer took him by the arm and said, ‘You have to go to the office.’ The student resisted, pushed the officer. The officer, defending himself, took out his stun gun and did a drive stun.”

Chief Burton said a drive stun involves pushing the Taser against a portion of the body and squeezing the trigger, thus immobilizing a portion of the body, such as the leg. He said this affects about a 2- or 3-inch area.

While on the floor, the student was still resisting and was placed in handcuffs, Chief Burton said. The student complained of a headache and dizziness and was taken to Forbes Regional Hospital.

Career Builder Job Search ‘School Principal NJ’

Monster.com Job Search ‘School Administrator NJ’

NJ School Jobs search ‘Principal NJ ‘:    Cranford Middletown Piscataway Livingston

Top School Jobs. Org search ‘Principal NJ’:  Zip, nada, nothing, zilch, zero

Since it seems like many of us in the Ed Leadership cohorts are looking for leadership positions (or will be in the future), does anybody else have any other job-finding sources besides the dead tree media or a well-connected cousin?

A kindergartner’s mother cannot read Scripture during show and tell, even if the Bible is the boy’s favorite book, a U.S. appeals court said Monday in the latest challenge over religion in public schools.

The Marple Newtown School District in suburban Philadelphia told plaintiff Donna Kay Busch in October 2004 that she could not read the Bible passages during her son’s “All About Me” program. The school did permit the boy to discuss a poster that included references to his church as well as his family, pet and best friend.

“Parents of public school kindergarten students may reasonably expect their children will not become captive audiences to an adult’s reading of religious texts,” Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in the split 2-1 opinion, which upheld a lower court decision.

Schools can more tightly control speech presented to younger students, who may not distinguish a parent from their teacher, the ruling said.

Busch argued that the class heard stories related to Passover, Christmas and other religious holidays, but the court concluded there was a “significant difference” between identifying such holidays and reading from Scripture.

Is this fair?

A new funding formula that treats all districts the same “represents a thoughtful, progressive attempt to assist at-risk children throughout the state of New Jersey, and not only those who by happenstance reside in Abbott districts,” Doyne wrote in a 280-page decision, agreeing with the major argument of the Corzine administration….

The Corzine administration last year asked the Supreme Court to void Abbott mandates, arguing that a new school funding formula fairly shares state aid among New Jersey’s 616 districts. The case landed in Hackensack after justices asked Doyne to review it and make a recommendation…

So, I don’t know exactly how to feel about this.  Are the ‘Abbott’ schools getting the short end of the stick here or will this somehow work out better for the ‘at-risk’ districts?

Math teacher David Gierek teaching his class at Garfield Middle School. Garfield is an Abbott District.

Here’s a few questions:  How could I improve this student website?

Also, I’m a social studies teacher.  How could something like this be used in different subject areas and contexts?