Can't Keep Up.. ARGH

Yesterday, I swear I wrote 2 papers and studied from the time I dropped Shea off at school until I picked her up. After school, I took her to Capoeira and the John Harvard Academy, then came home and studied, picked her up and we both came home and studied.

We spent the last few hours watching Bowling for Columbine followed by Flashdane and then we were spent.

This morning, dropped the kid off and headed to class, turned in my papers, studied, studied, studied, finally pass chapter 6 in my damn algebra course. Picked up the kid, headed to a the San Diego Mission Acala for a tour and mass. And dropped her off at gymnastics. Walk in the door, I got to figure out when and which channel the Republican debates are on, and I turn on the news, and before the screen EVEN materializes, the voices are saying "more bad news for Point Loma schools..."

FARK! FArk! FarK!

Class of 2019 to be the last at Dana

First there was a note from a name that I was not familiar with. Then came a note from Principal Ryan.
San Diego Unified School District needs to close ten schools in order to address next year's budget deficit. On October 3rd the District's School Closure Committee presented the following recommendations to the Point Loma Cluster Foundation.

DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE POINT LOMA CLUSTER:

1. Close Cabrillo Elementary effective July 2012.
2. Close Barnard campus but keep the Mandarin Magnet K-6 program by relocating it to the Dana campus effective September 2012. Expand the magnet focus from Mandarin Chinese to a Pacific Rim Language Immersion K-8 program.
3. Close Dana Middle School Grade 5 effective July 2012.
4. Convert Dewey, Loma Portal, Ocean Beach, Silver Gate, Sunset View from K-4 to K-5 schools effective September 2012.
5. Dana's current fifth graders will return to Dana for sixth grade in September 2012. The sixth grade program will share the Dana campus with the Pacific Rim Language Immersion K-8 program for the 2012-13 school year.
6. Completely close Dana Middle School effective July 2013.
7. Correia's grade level configuration remains the same for 2012-13, but will convert to a 6-8 middle school in 2013-14. Correia will serve as the only middle school in Point Loma.
8. Point Loma High School is not impacted by the draft recommendations.


First, the feedback from local FB parents were more like "sounds great! keep kids at elementary longer! positive!" However, I wonder what the feedback is going to be with the closing of Dana all together. I know this much, the past few years at OBE in the fall, when they kept rearranging rooms, teachers and student, it was BAD. I can't imagine the negativity and commotion it will be with rearranging the whole cluster. Ugh. What are other options we could look into? Start applying at other charter schools, other than HTH? This is so not cool.

I *heart* the Shinkasen

We have a major paper/presentation coming up in my argumentation class. Not only do you have to prepare a paper from one point of view, then we are required to prepare another presentation from the other point of view. Many in my class grunted, but I'm picking up with Professor Engstrom is putting down.

I had my subject picked. No Child Left Behind. We passed a sign up paper, so classmates would avoid giving the same research and lo and behold, Joshua go there first. I shook my fist at him, in mock anger and thought.

Then I picked the bullet train. I absolutely LOVE the idea of these. I cannot fathom WHY we do not have high speed rails connecting our major cities like Japan.
This research will alot me the time to find out why. Good, I'm glad. Trains are cool. 400 MPH Shinkasens are cooler!

When Someone Passes

I woke this morning to Mikee calling. I didn't pick up. It called again, something was wrong. I picked up. He told me Hugo had passed away, in his sleep, overnight, heart attack.

I don't know many men that I actually look up to. I don't know many good fathers, who would be "my" father's age. In my little world, there is only a handful. Hugo was one of them. Just a good guy. A grown man with a huge heart. His wife and him sponsored Shealyn's catechism classes and an art camp a few years back. He treated Mikee like a son and was a really really nice guy. My sympathy goes out to his Martha, his daughters, son's in law's and grandson. He was an integral part of our lives and will be missed.

DAMM YOU ~ NKOTB.. Err I mean.. NCLB

Each year in elementary, the kids are bombarded with testing. I have always kinda winced at it because I was under the impression that it was directly a result of No Child Left Behind. True, however.....

The GATE program, as you may or may not know is the Gifted & Talented Education seems to also be a direct result of the same damn test, that I have been mocking. Either I missed the info, most likely, or never got the memo.. whichever. Here is what I learned now, too late for GATE Seminar, but maybe not too late for GATE cluster.

The STAR testing, also known as the CST testing which occurs in 2nd grade puts kids into the program. But, according to this little form I just got, there is a SECOND chance. IF since then, they have had 2 advanced scores on they get tested again for GATE Cluster and if they had 5 advanced scores, they get a second shot at seminar.

Since we made the decision to put the kid in the John Harvard Academy and take a serious proactive take on these academics, her scores went through the roof! It goes to show with the right encouragement, your average kid can do anything! She only got 3 our of 6 advanced scores on her STAR testing. I am still very pleased with that. We just set the bar higher, and through it she leaped.

She may or may not make it into the program. I hope she does, I hope she get an even higher bar to leap over.

What bums me out, is my attitude towards those tests. I am saddened at my general anger at the whole 'testing' thing, and it being used to grade schools & teachers.
I know our kids are being raised to be test takers and not well rounded thinkers.
And I am feeling like a hypocrite.

I am also facing this damn hourglass. At any moment, she will be a teenager who hates me and thinks everything is "boring". Hope we can cram enough smarts in her little head so she may make it through. :)

I pray she has enough hobbies and interests that will keep her away from all the things that can destroy your youth. It is a slippery slope, as I say with experience. After you loose it all, it is hard to get it back.

On that note. I was working in the administration office of the Zoo today. I was filing all these donation letters. One was a donation of 6.6 million. I wasn't envious of that family, I wasn't envious of the higher ups around me, I was envious of not finishing college before starting a family. When you are young, there is this notion of having kids makes you all grown up. It is hard raising kids while still working on your degree. What did I read the other day? It costs 64K a year for a family of 3? How do you make that on minimum wage? Ugh.

God, give this kid the smarts to do it right. School, College, CAREER then start a family. That equation is so tough rearranged...

48th Annual Cabrillo Festival

Again! I missed Cabrillo arriving on the shore! Next year, the Portuguese ladies tell me every year, he arrives at 1. I need to keep that in mind! It is really cool to be able to be on Sub-Base for the one day of the year.

But we did get to see Cabrillo, who did from gangrene after messing up his shin. Good to know, but he also had named SD San Miguel.

After the festival, we took Shea to St. Agnes and to Volare. :)

Lesson for Me @ Halloween!

Something that Shea has instilled in me. For all the "go, go, go, I do. Which I do self-chastise for slowing down and/or taking a break, Shea keeps up very well. However, I often tell her that "this" is only "this" long or, finish this class for "this" amount of time, then take a break. I am finally doing that mind set for myself.

I felt immediately guilty for logging into my blog, and seeing that I haven't wrote for a while, then was like.. "eh, no biggie, you took a break!"... ah!

October has arrived, and Shealyn came home on Saturday, so that her Pop could go to a party of sorts, and she knew exactly what day it was. It was October 1st, meaning that it was TIME to get the Halloween schwag out of storage. I made it a big deal that we don't acknowledge holidays until the MONTH of. I can't stand seeing Halloween crap in stores in August or September. :0

Saturday night we drove up to Old Del Mar and rode the Haunted Hayride! Shea tackled another fear! At first I had to drag her into the area, but at the end, she was taunting the ghouls. The hayride is for those who have a hard time putting foot in front of another in the normal haunted houses.