Lunar Eclipse 1-20-19

Mesa Ridge Grizzlies 2014

 The steal and lay-up at buzzer to win the semifinals against Pueblo South and advance to the championships.

 AND they're state champs, beating the expected-to-win Broomfield 45-41, finishing an undefeated season at 28-0. Very proud of and happy for my brother, niece and the whole team.

The big game suit. :)

Interview on the winning game and the suit

Great photos from the Gazette

Proposed D11 High School Boundaries after Closing Wasson

Here are the proposed boundaries:

Here are the current boundaries:

35th Annual CSU Pueblo Math Day 2012

We did well and had a great time.  I'll refrain from mentioning names / tagging photos on a non-school-affiliated forum, but here are some photos.

White House Trip!

Link to the article/page NEA made for the trip (with me as the token teacher activist):  http://www.educationvotes.nea.org/2011/11/02/video-nea-members-talk-school-modernization-with-president-obama/

NEA representatives in front of the White House prior to the Nov. 1, 2001 meeting on the American Jobs Act.

Vice President Joe Biden addressing the audience.

President Barack Obama

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and David Plough during the West Wing conference call.

Me with the NEA President in front of the West Wing.

The group photo with VP Biden on his way out of the office.

President Obama exiting the meeting.

Me with the President speaking behind me.

The White House as it looked as we headed back to the hotel.

Write-up for CSEA newsletter:

I had a very unexpected message when I got home from parent-teacher conferences in late October.  The message was from Andy Linebaugh at the NEA offices in Washington D.C., and he was inviting me to go to the White House for a meeting with President Obama.  It was too late to call him back that evening, so I had to wait until the next day to get more information.  I was being invited because of a short paragraph I had written at the Education Votes website in response to an NEA e-mail request asking teachers to describe how budget cuts were affecting their schools. 

This is what I wrote:

“My school has been lucky compared to many in these times of cuts. We didn’t have to lay off nearly as many teachers as some schools. But, year after year we come to work in 90+ temps with packed classrooms and no AC. We can’t pass a bond issue for many reasons—public education’s battered reputation and “we-can’t-take-one-more-request-for-money” battered voters are two of the big ones. I have classes of 36 and 37 teenagers packed into desks that are falling apart, using textbooks older than they are. Every day, students ask for food, paper, pencils, fundraiser purchases, even clothes, let alone the graphing calculators we want them to have to keep up with technological advances in education. Our carpet is threadbare, stained, and approaching 40 years old, but can’t be replaced because there is an asbestos issue we can’t afford to address. New mandates come from the government every year, but never with any funding for the training and infrastructure required to implement. We’re supposed to be a magic black box that produces perfect widgets out of students with nothing. I wish we could have some of the joy of Finnish education; I wish I could feel that people of America believed in the value of free quality education for all. That was a principle I was raised on and firmly believe in, but I feel it is a value that is being sorely eroded.”

I felt I shouldn’t pass up a rare opportunity like this one, so I accepted the offer and the following Monday I was flying to Washington D.C.  All the business happened on Tuesday.  I made my way a block from my hotel to the NEA offices where I was warmly welcomed.  It turned out, I was the only classroom teacher attending – the ten others representing NEA and teachers were the NEA President, a member of his staff, and 8 representatives from various states that are association Presidents and Vice Presidents at the state level.  We attended a briefing, and then were interviewed and video-taped individually about school conditions to be used in press releases or provided to the state and local associations to use as needed.  We went to the White House in the afternoon.  The meeting was in the East Room and included some other organizations like the NAACP in addition to NEA for a total of about 120 guests.  Three cabinet members and the Reverend Al Sharpton were in attendance.  There were four speakers including Vice President Joe Biden and President Obama.  The topic of discussion was the American Jobs Act and the need to create and preserve public sector jobs and infrastructure.  The President did take questions and comments from the audience and committed to continue fighting for school funding.  He said that the most important thing educators and students can do to try to advocate for school funding and infrastructure is to get their stories out in the local press as much as possible.  Much of the public does not really understand how budget cuts are affecting what happens in the classroom and the state of repair of schools and the only way they will learn is if people in the schools tell them and show them.

After the President left, the NEA group was quickly ushered to the West Wing to attend a conference call with David Plough (President Obama’s campaign manager and political strategist) and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, and a variety of NEA members from around the country who wished to learn about the meeting we had just attended or express what is happening in their schools.  When the call concluded, we left the White House and each gave short video synopses of our experiences to the NEA press crew. 

While we hope that the meeting will make some positive difference that all of us will benefit from, the experience was also very exciting and fun.  We all had opportunities to get pictures of the President and Vice President, some shook hands with one or both of them, and we had a group photo with the Vice President as he was leaving the West Wing on his way home.  We were made to feel quite welcome at the White House.  I put some of my trip pictures on my blog at http://masooma.blogspot.com/2011/11/white-house-trip.html , which also includes a link to an article with pictures and video that NEA wrote up about the event.  They decided to make the stories with me the focus of the event because I was the classroom teacher as opposed to a state officer.  I tried to represent us all well and am very thankful for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Math Day

I took some kids from my school down to CSU-Pueblo for a math competition today and our upperclassmen did very well. We lost to only one team and came home with a big trophy for the math bowl competition. In the individual written contest, we got a 2nd place, 5th place, and two honorable mentions - so all our upperclassmen placed. We did the best out of all the schools in our district that went down on the bus together to the competition.

On the way down to Pueblo, I saw something really neat - a whole herd of Elk in a field eating grass, just off the Interstate a few miles north of the PPIR (Pikes Peak International Raceway) track. I've never seen Elk at that low of an elevation before, and there were many of them - neato!

The pictures in this post were taken at the CSU-Pueblo Physics/Math building - they had some neat art reminiscent of Islamic tilings.
is pretty ill. I went to visit the person, and the teacher is getting the needed help but may be there awhile, probably not back to teaching for this semester. Prayers would be appreciated.

My district is looking at having to cut more than $10 million from an already bare-bones budget for next year - it is a little scary - I expect total salary freezes, layoffs, furloughs, cut programs, larger class sizes, no new textbooks or supplies, etc., even though many are already desperately needed.

Finally, Colorado Springs has a veritable Hooverville these days. Along Fountain Creek all the way from Motor City up to CC and probably other places beyond sight of the Interstate, are tents of homeless people who have set up semi-permanent/permanent camp. There were so many I couldn't count....

Bob Hall's Lost Letter

Something interesting happened to me today. Yesterday was the last day of finals and today at school we teachers were busy doing cleaning and checkout. I was cleaning out my desk in my classroom and pulled out the bottom drawer as far as it would go and noticed some papers had fallen underneath it into a metal tray under the drawer. I stuck my hand in there and pulled out a stack of dusty papers.

There were English papers and Science papers from the mid 1990's. And there was something else. A letter, maybe something like a birthday card, sealed in its envelope addressed and stamped (with a 29 cent stamp, dating it to 1991-1994), but never mailed. The letter was from Bob Hall to another Hall relative in California. Bob Hall was at my school before I got there so I never knew him, but there is an image of him in the memorial garden next to our school. One graduation day in the mid-90's, I think around '94, he was diagnosed with cancer and died before school started the next fall. At that time I think he was an assistant principal. So here I was looking at a card from a man who died within a few years or months of writing it, but apparently lost it and never mailed it.

My friend gave me a stamp to make-up for the change in postage price since it was written, I put a little note on the back of the card explaining what had happened to it, and put it in the mail. I have no idea if the addresses are still valid or if the relatives are still alive, but I hope someone in Mr. Hall's family gets that letter. I know I would really like to get something like that if it were my relative.

Kites!

We had a great day flying kites we made in geometry class. Check out the pictures!

Picketwire Canyon Bike Trip

This weekend, mom and I and several teachers - including a disproportionate amount of math teachers and former math teachers - went mountain biking down in Picketwire Canyon to see the dinosaur tracks and petroglyphs. It was a great experience! The La Junta locals were very friendly and the weather ended up being perfect for the trip despite forecast of possible rain which might've made the trails miserably muddy.

Some photos from the trip are here - enjoy and comment!

Ridiculous Analogies and Metaphors (from students)

I don't know if this is true or not, but it is good for a laugh:

Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school
These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners.


1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high h schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one
of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. T! he whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and
Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. Traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River .

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine
or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Public Schools are Good!

For people actually involved in the schools, we knew this all along. I've seen both sides of the fence and public schools are generally much better in education reform than private schools.

All Things Considered, July 26, 2006 · Public schools perform favorably with private schools when students' income and socio-economic status are taken into account, according to a new report from the U.S. Education Department. The findings counter a popularly held notion, that private schools outperform public schools.

But the report has generated controversy due to what some call its overly low-key release, on a Friday evening. That spurred critics to charge that the Bush administration, long a supporter of private alternatives to public schools, was playing politics by burying data it doesn't like.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings calls her critics' charges ridiculous, saying the administration strongly supports public education. But, she says, the administration also believes parents should have choices.

Coronado on MTV

My high school is featured on a show on MTV airing right now. It is about a senior prank to close school two years ago. If you're interested it airs at the following times (all times Eastern): Tue 10/12 4:00 PM Wed 10/13 4:00 PM Thu 10/14 4:00 PM Fri 10/15 12:30 AM Fri 10/15 1:00 AM Fri 10/15 1:30 AM Fri 10/15 4:00 PM Sat 10/16 3:00 AM Sat 10/16 3:30 AM Sat 10/16 4:00 AM Sat 10/16 4:30 AM Sat 10/16 5:00 AM Sat 10/16 5:30 AM Sat 10/16 7:00 AM Sat 10/16 7:30 AM Sat 10/16 8:00 AM Sun 10/17 7:00 AM Sun 10/17 7:30 AM Sun 10/17 8:00 AM Sun 10/17 8:30 AM Mon 10/18 4:00 PM Tue 10/19 4:00 PM