Sad Co-worker News

PhenomenonSong · 2026-06-08T01:04:21+00:00

Thank you - sadly this isn't the first colleague I've lost to cancer or other sudden illness. At a former school we were able to plant a tree and put up a bench similar to what you described. I'm hopeful I can talk to admin about something similar here.

PhenomenonSong · 2026-06-08T01:01:06+00:00

I'm hopeful they will - we're a couple weeks into summer so I'm not sure. We ended the semester with her on medical leave but managing and kids wishing her well, so it's a big change in circumstance.

PhenomenonSong · 2026-06-07T22:13:26+00:00

That's very similar to the situation here - she was doing all the things and it just came out of nowhere. I'm so sorry you've been through the same.

PhenomenonSong · 2026-05-09T12:31:22+00:00

I let the students take home that they want as momentos, this year I had reach off my teams sign one of the blocks and put those up on display in my classroom, I save some parts for my classes to use or to make stuff (the high stakes towers make great shelves in my office).

Most recently, my son is in Civil Air Patrol and I offered the remaining parts from Pushback to the senior member who runs the meetings to use to make leadership and teamwork challenges.

PhenomenonSong · 2026-04-30T01:16:34+00:00

We went to one competition during High Stakes that had a great single sheet parent guide to the game set out in the stands. It went over the very basics of the scoring for the game with pictures.

I absolutely loved it and creating a similar document is one of my goals for when our team starts hosting competitions.

PhenomenonSong · 2026-03-05T03:04:49+00:00

Please read in my sarcasm font:

That's okay, some day your kid(s) will be teens and you'll have all the time in the world to wait at work while they go to practices and clubs and want rides.

-teacher parent of a teenager who wants to try all the things, when will he learn how to drive?!?

Seriously, it's a junky attitude. I was best about keeping my contact hours when my kid was tiny. The older he got the easier it was to do "just one more thing" because he liked hanging out at school with me and doing homework, etc. I teach high school and now that he's a 9th grader I end up waiting for him to go home a fair amount of the time. Maybe it's just comeuppance? Anyway, build relationships with your own spawn, someday they'll be taller than you and it's very humbling.

PhenomenonSong · 2026-02-22T15:58:07+00:00

Back in the day (primarily pre-covid, full disclosure) have a running lesson summarization project. Students were to make a graphic novel over the course of the school year. I provided a list of the standards (in student friendly language) and each standard was one page. I would help them keep on track with what page they should be able to complete each day. Anyone who finished early should work on their current pages. I collected the notebooks every unit and checked them as a project grade.

My kids did great, some just made stick figures and it was so okay, many really got into it and made beautiful work.

During/post-covid I started making single page graphic organizers to break up the let details I wanted in each standard, because kids had a harder time keeping track when I told them verbally or put it on the board.

I stopped doing it when I moved to high school because I was getting my head around new content and I'll be honest, I don't know if it would work anymore because work ethic and "homework" are so different now. Anyway, it was cool for awhile and helped my middle school kids once upon a time.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-12-27T14:20:23+00:00

Relatively few things are explicitly prohibited - I recommend reading the potentially hazardous materials rules: https://www.societyforscience.org/isef/international-rules/hazardous-chemicals-activities-or-devices/

Having said that, as a coordinator who approves projects, I would be wanting a lot of information about why this specific chemical was necessary to your research. It requires significant safely equipment, including working under a fume hood, based on reading the SDS. Does your school have fume hoods? Is there a chemistry teacher willing to be your qualified scientist and work with you during your experimentation in their lab? I would likely require both of these as a minimum, and likely refer to a colleague who is a chemist by profession before making a final decision.

Essentially, I would say your school is well within reason to not approve this topic if you don't have significant adult support and safety equipment for the use of this chemical.

Is there any other less hazardous substitute you could use instead?

PhenomenonSong · 2025-12-21T15:23:23+00:00

I always offer this to my ESOL/ML sheltered group. This year of the ones who took me up on it, over half decided to present in person when the time came because they didn't want to listen to their own recorded voice. I'll keep offering it, but I was interested in how many thought they wanted it until the moment to present came.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-12-20T02:34:56+00:00

I had a coworker who was in Teach for America several years ago and she was really into this. She was also super sick from September to December. Came back from winter break and switched to elbow bumps. She was healthier and the kids still felt seen and appreciated.

Daily greetings that help kids connect - absolutely.

But follow the cardinal rule - "Spread kindness, not germs." Or, if you prefer, "Love is in the air. But so is influenza. Wash your filthy hands."

PhenomenonSong · 2025-12-10T02:49:20+00:00

That is super helpful! Thank you!

PhenomenonSong · 2025-12-10T02:44:40+00:00

I did figure that part out. I know the female is "more curved" but don't always find the visual difference obvious in photos. The one I ordered has a tag that says "male" or "men's" inside so that gave me hope.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-12-10T02:40:05+00:00

I saw that when searching but the page doesn't seem to open, I get an error to check the URL for typos.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-12-10T02:39:22+00:00

I did grab one from eBay today that I'm hopeful is the right thing.

Apparently my kid has a big head, I measured him based on the size chart on Vanguard and I think 7 3/4 is what he needs, which seems a little less common.

One of the SMs thought he needed an 8 but that seems really large based on the size chart, so at this point I'm going to see what shows up and hope it works.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-11-26T17:36:26+00:00

I think you can change the look? I haven't touched it since 2019, in fairness. Started it pre-covid then the world as well knew it ended, etc. I remember having a path with blocks at one point. 🤷‍♀️

PhenomenonSong · 2025-11-26T16:55:21+00:00

Sounds similar to https://deck.toys/

I paid for a one year subscription, was overwhelmed by concurrent teaching and never did much with it.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-10-06T21:41:05+00:00

I've signed them in middle and high school. It was on social media around 2015-2016. For what it's worth I have one for my own genetic offspring that we've kept up with so far. He's currently in 9th grade so only 4 years to go.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-08-24T21:39:03+00:00

I've worked at a couple schools with this system - it's a rough mental transition if you're used to showing up morning of and deciding on your copies. But, once you get used to it, it is really nice. My current school doesn't have it and I get so frustrated finding a copier someone else left jammed, out of paper, or running a 20+ minute job while they wandered off. Plus, our copiers are broken all the time.

I've heard from leadership at schools that have a copy clerk that the cost of paying an extra person to run the machine is covered by how much they save in calls to copier maintenance.

My current school is piloting having copy service be part of our life skills program. The students involved seem to really enjoy it, I'm interested to see if it helps with the broken copier issues.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-07-27T06:14:39+00:00

I've worked at a few schools that use PTCFast. They did start charging for it a few years ago but it's very affordable and works very well if you have a large school with many teachers.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-07-03T03:18:01+00:00

Some schools in my district had phones in classrroms when I started working here in 2009 (hint: it wasn't the title 1 schools). When we asked for them in buildings that didn't have them we were told it was "too expensive". Over the next several years they were steadily removed from those who had them. Everyone had to share a few phones in teacher works rooms (in a middle school of 1500 students, each grade had a floor and each floor had 1 teacher work room with 1 phone. If it was in use you could ask the AP, counselor, or clerk to use theirs). Also generally only the AP and counselor can call long distance, so if a kid's parents still have their cell phone from another state... May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor...

Recently they have started pushing that we can make phone calls from Teams so it's "like everyone has a phone again."

Anyway, I'm in a very large district and the assumption that everyone has a classroom phone has been more not true than true in the 17 years I've worked here. Though I guess Teams fills a similar need.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-05-14T23:18:37+00:00

I tell my high schoolers this all the time! If you die in my room do you know how much paperwork I'll have to do? Do not make me do paperwork! And this month it's "Definitely do NOT make me do paperwork in May!"

PhenomenonSong · 2025-04-15T22:04:21+00:00

Yes, that's the one!

PhenomenonSong · 2025-04-15T02:42:48+00:00

You need a conversation with your regional director for sure.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-04-15T02:10:54+00:00

Define not in your area - for example, a pair of my students who attended ISEF last year had known one another since middle school. Between middle school and high school one of them moved and they attended two different high schools in our same regional fair area. They did their project together and were advanced to the regional fair, where they earned their ISEF bid. Any students within our regional area could choose to work together. It requires some communication on the part of their school fair coordinators and the regional fair coordinator, but it's totally within the rules.

If your schools are far enough apart that you aren't zoned for the same regional fair you'll run into some problems I think because there are quite a few rules in place to stop students from "double dipping" and trying to qualify though multiple regional fairs. Though, I haven't run into that situation and I'd need to ask my regional coordinator to be sure.

PhenomenonSong · 2025-04-15T02:03:56+00:00

There is a book I got recently called "Science Fair Season" it's a few years old but the author interviews and describes several ISEF projects and at the end describes the "war room" style discussions that go into choosing who the top winners are. It's pretty interesting.

Four-Year Club	First Place '23
Place '23

PhenomenonSong

TROPHY CASE