In Comes September

I and the teachers flew into Bethel, on Memorial Day, to attend a week long district wide conference and pre-conference. I've been to a lot of district conferences and, I must say, this was the best one I've ever attended. Usually it is more of a social event, because everyone attending knows that whatever the district is touting this week will be non-existent next week or, what I am being taught, very little will be useful when I return to my class room.

I attended two SIOP lessons. This was originally designed to teach ELL students and has been expanded to teach all students who are acquiring a new language. Pretty much all of rural AK's students are acquiring English and most of them are not proficient in their Native language. LKSD uses the SIOP model to design their teacher evaluation tool. It is so much more supportive, of the teachers, than ASD's Danielson Model. Anyway those lessons I attended, every teacher and I walked away with tools we could use immediately in the classroom and I was very impressed with the simplicity of them. One teacher shared that she took a SIOP course in Texas (They have a huge ELL population and are now the experts in SIOP.). She came back to LKSD and implemented the concepts in her classroom a year before the district adopted it, and saw her students grades improve by 20%--part of the reason LKSD adopted it. The other two classes I attended were math classes, because I help by pulling out math students for some one-on-one instruction. Because they were based on the SIOP model, they were also excellent.

We were one of the last group to get out of Bethel. Most of the other schools have a lot of teachers, so they charter flights. Because charters have priority, we three had to wait for a plane to return and take us home. It was good to get back home. The "big city" was to much for us. :)

As we flew in, it was such a beautiful evening; I was able to take some pictures of Platinum.

This is all of Platinum. You can see Goodnews across the bay, just at the base of the mountains/hills sort of in the center of the picture. The little white specs.

This shows the spit we are on. At the end of the spit is the fish processing plant. During the summer, they have 300-500 workers living there. Platinum has 65 residents.

This is the suburbs where most people live. The pink house right under the wing is my teacher's house.

Almost landed, you can see the school--the large reddish building. My house is just to the left, behind the small building closer to the landing strip.

There isn't a cloud in the sky. These are the typical beautiful days I have been experiencing. 

Next week I will be teaching K-5 for three days. My elementary teacher has to go to Fairbanks to take a test. He is very concerned about leaving me lesson plans. I told him I would do the best I can to follow them and keep everyone on task. This will be interesting. :)