Yikes! Where did the year go?

Well...when I first started this blog I thought for sure I would be wanting to post constantly. How wrong I was! With all the end of the year assessments progress reports, conferences, and paper work to wrap up, I simply have not had the time! To top it off, I was out sick the day before the last day of school and then on teacher work day I threw my back out. What a way to start summer break! I am still learning the ropes of the whole blogging thing, so there have been several times I have logged in to try to figure out what I need to add on here to follow people, or how I follow people, and that is all I had time for! I have come across many awesome and inspiring blogs that have taken a good amount of my time...but as for my blogging, not so much! I am hoping now that summer is here and I have some free time, ehhh kinda, that I will be able to keep up on this more and use it as a tool to help me grow professionally!

It is hard to believe that I have been out of college 3 years now and officially have 3 years under my belt of teaching. I was very fortunate to obtain a teaching position right out of college and have been in the same position since. I am a special education resource teacher at a kindergarten through fourth grade elementary school. I have a caseload of about twenty students who have a variety of needs! I have students with learning disabilities, cognitive disabilities, ASD, and so much more! Obviously my main priority as the resource teacher is to meet the needs and services of the students on my caseload. However, I also see many students who receive Tier 2 or Tier 3 interventions based on the RTI model. I often mix the RTI intervention groups with my special education groups when these types of students have like needs. Groups are always changing and interventions are always being tweaked, thanks to our consistent compilation and review of data! I love this because I feel that it has helped dissolve the stigma and labels of special education. The students in the school don't even realize I am a "special education" teacher. In fact, some think I am the advanced math teacher :) Aside from the special education teacher role and assisting with RTI services, I am also the RTI Coordinator for my school. It is really just a fancy title for someone who makes sure data is being compiled, reviewed, and that changes are being made according to student progress, or lack there of. This was my first year really implementing this role, but I have come to love it! I get to work with all grade levels, discuss students, and create plans to ensure student growth! I have had awesome teachers to work with and I think our hard work and dedication has really paid off in relation to RTI. I think we have caught many student deficiencies before they have gotten too far behind and we have also kept a lot of students out of special education! This year it was my goal to be very organized with data for students individually and as a grade level. We use Aimsweb for the majority of our benchmarking and progress monitoring, but I wanted to find a way to make sure we were looking at the overall academic performance of students in all areas. I will share that document later this week :)

Now that you know a little about what I do...back to the end of the year. Sigh. What a good year it was and how sad I am to see it go! I have an awesome staff that I work with and have gained some awesome friendships in my past three years. I never dreamed that I when I started this job, that a good group of these people would  become like family to me. This upcoming year is going to be a year of change, a few of my closest friends at my school are moving forward in their education career to grow professionally. I am so happy for them and know that each one of their opportunities is part of the plan God has in store for them. Then there is that selfish side of me that just wants them to stay. They make work such a wonderful place to be and they are all outstanding teachers. I never thought I would love showing up to work as much as I do. However, I know these are life-long friendships and they are only a few blocks and a phone call away :) Change can be good and only makes us grow!

The end of the year is always so much fun and I love getting all the "Thank You's" from parents. It is so nice to know that I am able to make a difference in a child's life and the simplest little emails or notes are always the best gifts. They make everything that I do and all the time I put into my students and school, so worth it. I do have to share a picture of some of the stationery I got from one of my students at the end of the year. If this stationery doesn't scream "Miss Holcomb," then I don't know what does. You can never go wrong with pink, black/white, and animal prints in my book.

I am happy to say I have accomplished my main goals for blogging today: 1) let everyone know I am still kicking and still trying to get aquainted with the blogging world, 2) figure out how to upload a picture! With that being said here is one more picture, now that I know how to add them :)

This summer I am babysitting Mon/Wed/Fri and tutoring Tues/Thurs. Yes, I never take a break. I am slight workaholic. On Monday, I started babysitting and it was not the ideal pool weather day, so what did we do? Duck Tape! We spent a large part of our day using Google and YouTube to find vidoes of things to make. I ended up making flower pens, bows, and even a purse :) Talk about setting high expectations for myself...I hope they realize I am not always this fun and entertaining!

Now that I have completed all of blog #2, I promise to be back a lot more often and with a lot more education related topics/ideas! I am ready to begin my organizing/ researching projects for the summer as I prepare for the 2012-2013 school year! Enjoy the beginning of summer...it only lasts so long :)