Great Start to the Week

WARNING : If you're not a teacher in Texas the following post may seem a little boring. If you are or know someone who is you'll completely understand how a few percentages can mean so much.

Around 9 this morning one of our counselors walked into my classroom and said that our principal wanted to see me in her office. Immediately my heart sank and I knew the only reason she would be pulling me out of class in the middle of the morning was because our Science TAKS scores were in. Sure enough as I made my way to her office I see other 3rd, 4th and 5th grade teachers headed in the same direction. All 19 uf us crammed into her office, shut the door and waited for her to begin. As a school we did awesome with all grade levels scoring at least a 93% or better in all areas that were tested. After she went through and shared results with the other two grade levels she glances at her papers and says "Ok 5th grade now for science." She took a long pause which worried all of us and then said "Gosh, it's 99% passing with 55% commended!" We were thrilled. That's the highest we've been in a while. It was such a relief to hear that. My class did an AWESOME job.
We had 100% passing and 19 out of 23 students who earned commended performance. For science that is great! The standard for passing is 75% and to earn commended they have to miss no more than 3 questions. They were so excited when I told them. Finally we can relax and enjoy the last two weeks of school!!!!!! Robert had good news this morning too. His school met AYP standards after struggling for the last couple of years!! They've been through a lot of changes to try and get their scores to where they needed to be and it's great to see them find success. No more headaches, ulcers and lost sleep over TAKS!!! Well, at least until next school year!