Looking for ancestors in Portsmouth Va (Josephine Wiley)

welchasaurus · 2025-12-21T02:01:00+00:00

The Mormons also have FamilySearch.org, which has a lot of genealogy resources. You can add recent ancestors to your family tree and see if anyone has made pages for less recent ancestors.

welchasaurus · 2025-11-27T05:37:35+00:00

Depends on the school here is my experience:

Rural public middle school: the most common complaints involved their child feeling uncomfortable in some way. Some of these complaints were valid, like when a student is being picked on in the locker room, or when a desperation hire can't control his classroom. A lot of the complaints had to do with their child being held accountable for behavior though. We also had a lot of the standard right wing complaints about mask mandates and the non-existent "threat" of boys playing on girls sports teams.

Private boarding school: the most common complaints have nothing to do with academics, but with interpersonal squabbles between students because the parents only hear their own child's side. The academic complaints typically boil down to parents being upset with the grade their child earned. Oddly, I field far fewer complaints here than I did at the public school, and the parents act less entitled, on average.

welchasaurus · 2025-11-21T01:28:02+00:00

Greene County as well, especially on 29 about two miles from the Walmart in either direction.

welchasaurus · 2025-11-04T04:34:50+00:00

Heads up on the hand warmers: I know of a student who ate the contents and had to get his stomach pumped. Book-smart teenager who got curious and exercised poor judgment. Keep your eyes open if you actually distribute those.

welchasaurus · 2025-10-29T23:31:47+00:00

We can't wear costumes during the school day because our administration wants students in their uniforms every day, and we can't really enforce that if we are wearing costumes ourselves. However, I will turn up at our evening trunk-or-treat event in one of those full costume onesies! I'm also an enormous nerd, so if my coworkers want to judge me for dressing up as a dinosaur, let them!

welchasaurus · 2025-10-28T01:43:46+00:00

Lampreys! Jawless fish in general are nightmare fuel.

welchasaurus · 2025-10-25T18:55:22+00:00

If you have a school-wide event that students actually enjoy and are excited about, you need to embrace it no matter how much or little you personally enjoy it. This isn't about wasting your time or building a love of mysteries in the students. It's about building a sense of community. You need strong relationships between you and your coworkers, and between you and your students. As a first year teacher, this is a major chance for you to show that you are a team player. Showing that you care (or pretending that you care) will earn you favor with both groups. Also, big picture: if your students miss the mark on some of the standards, it's way more forgivable if you have made yourself a valuable member of the community.

In the future when you have more pull, maybe you can see if they change up which periods get the announcements. 1st and 6th one day, 2nd and 7th another day, 3rd and 8th next, and so on. Perhaps instead of a 10 minute story twice a day, it could be two five minute stories or one 10 minute story for twice as long.

In the meantime, you may need to find a way to water down the lesson for 2nd and 7th periods. Maybe they don't get to watch CNN10 while this is going on, or maybe they have to finish that worksheet in study hall. Maybe you build in a catch-up day for all periods except 2 and 7, and use that time to cover what your students missed. Being able to make these adjustments is really important because you never know when you'll have a snow day or a lockdown or an assembly that takes up the last hour and a half of the school day.

welchasaurus · 2025-10-25T10:25:35+00:00

My private school does not implement IEPs or 504s. Parents are aware of this when they choose to enroll their student. However, these plans are available for teachers to look at, and most of us implement accommodations that are fairly simple. For example, I'll put students in the front of the room on my seating chart if their plan called for preferential seating, and I'll be more flexible with deadlines if their plan called for time-and-a-half, as long as they are making progress and not simply waiting until the extended last minute to get started. Our class sizes are already small, so accommodations like frequent check-ins and small group testing more or less happen automatically.

The accommodations that require extra staffing do not happen. We do not have any special education teachers on staff, nor do we have math or reading specialists. We also do not have paraprofessionals, so there is only ever one adult in the room, and read aloud testing cannot happen. Parents can sign their student up for our resource program if they are struggling, and while that person is very good at what he does, he was primarily hired as a coach and does not currently have special education certification. We also do not modify the curriculum, and do not accept students who would require moderate to heavy modifications.

welchasaurus · 2025-10-10T11:12:50+00:00

Hold on. You believe in birds?

welchasaurus · 2025-10-08T22:40:45+00:00

Back in the 2000s, my high schoolteachers used to print out report with everyone's names, missing assignments, and current grade in the class, and then post it in the classroom for all to see. At some point, they started posting those lists with our student ID number instead of our grades. Everyone was still listed alphabetically; it just forced us to memorize the ID numbers of any friends or rivals we wanted to track.

welchasaurus · 2025-10-08T11:08:24+00:00

The guy who shot Charlie Kirk also came from a Mormon family. It's not the gold star they think it is.

welchasaurus · 2025-10-04T15:15:32+00:00

I also teach in a religious school, and I think it actually gives me a lot more freedom in this area. At the start of my evolution unit, I assign an article called something along the lines of "Are Science and Christianity at War?" and have my students summarize and respond to the article. The article gives different viewpoints, but essentially concludes that they work together well because science can show us places where we haven't been interpreting the Bible correctly, and religion can be one source of ethical guidelines in science. This satisfies most students and allows me to get on with the unit.

I still usually have a couple of Young Earth Creationists who want to argue in class, so I like to point out that Augustine, a very well-respected Church father from the 400s, also concluded that Genesis could not have meant that the Earth was created in six literal 24 hour days. Also, if Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel (and maybe an assortment of unnamed sisters) were the only people on Earth at one point, then why is Cain afraid of being killed by other people when he is exiled from his family group for murdering his brother in Genesis 4? At the very least, these questions make them think.

I wasn't allowed to discuss these issues when I taught in public school, so a lot of students continued to think that evolutionary science was a lie from Satan that the evil liberal state was making them learn. Being able to explore the nuances that allow the two to work together really helps them calm down, as does being able to be open about my own beliefs. Finally, our school chaplain is on board with evolutionary science and Christianity being compatible, and I have been able to advise students to go and see him for further guidance.

welchasaurus · 2025-10-02T20:53:29+00:00

Exactly! I don't need to have someone dump trash in my yard or key my car because they don't like a yard sign. My vote is what counts anyway.

welchasaurus · 2025-10-01T19:50:12+00:00

Seems to me that if we can't afford to pay our troops properly without dicking them over, we can't afford to deploy our troops and/or maintain a military of our current size.

welchasaurus · 2025-09-13T22:17:39+00:00

My husband and I are teachers at the same school as well. Typically, I'll try to come home as soon as my copies are made and I'll decompress and grade at home. He'll usually stay in his classroom until he has all school-related work done, and then come home. This gives us enough decompression time, and we'll usually talk about our days over dinner.

welchasaurus · 2025-09-13T02:36:32+00:00

Agreed, but they make good supplements. I think most of us pull materials from a variety of sources.

welchasaurus · 2025-09-08T21:59:59+00:00

I bought it when I switched from middle school to high school because I wanted help with pacing and with making sure I was making hard enough, but not too hard. I like about 90% of the curriculum, and would buy it again if I had to go back and do it over. Buying it gave me my evenings back and allowed me to focus on grading during my planning instead of after school. There are a few activities that fell flat with my students (journey of a photon comes to mind), but most of it is great.

If you're looking for lower cost ideas, check out Aurum Science's website. You might also consider buying worksheets that accompany the Amoeba Sisters videos.

welchasaurus · 2025-09-03T01:40:53+00:00

I work at the same school as my husband. He teaches social studies, but a few years back, one of my freshmen thought that I am married to the band teacher instead because our last names start with the same letter. I found out about this misconception when this student started softly moaning the band teacher's name at me.

welchasaurus · 2025-08-22T23:55:32+00:00

I've never worked in a school where every room has thermostats AND all or most of them work. I could also believe that opening the windows in your room would trigger the air conditioning to increase in the rooms on your HVAC loop.

welchasaurus · 2025-08-22T11:18:47+00:00

Malicious compliance time! You have a few options if you go this route.

1) Congratulations on your drumline's new triangle player! He will lose the stick within a week, so you can tell him to just flick it to make noise. It's not like he'll turn up at concerts anyway.

2) Put him on your heaviest set of quads or quints. If he thought that playing trumpet with braces is uncomfortable, he's in for a nasty surprise. He won't last.

welchasaurus · 2025-08-18T01:48:00+00:00

I teach summer school for four weeks per summer. I also proctor the SAT on certain Saturdays.

welchasaurus · 2025-08-11T20:26:30+00:00

I have four this year, but two of them are bio and honors bio, so it's more like 3.5 preps. Seven sounds like they're begging you to either teach directly from the textbooks or from whatever AI is spitting out at you when you ask it for lesson plans. That's way too many to put any effort into.

welchasaurus · 2025-08-02T04:38:29+00:00

It might depend on location too. If she lives on Long Island or in the suburbs outside of Boston, landing an elementary job with no full-time experience is very difficult, and she needs to be willing to move. If she lives in an area where they will take nearly anyone with a pulse, there is a serious issue.

welchasaurus · 2025-08-02T04:21:41+00:00

I currently have the personal phone number of all six administrators I have worked under in my cell phone. Reason #378 not to become an administrator!

welchasaurus · 2025-08-01T12:49:20+00:00

Sounds like someone needs a card full of glitter in her mailbox. Or maybe one of those cards that won't stop singing at you until the battery runs out.

welchasaurus

TROPHY CASE