Life in general...

It's a lazy weekend Sunday and I'm listening to the rain come down and it's so relaxing. It's the perfect way to start Spring Break.

Mom got here today and we'll be running around this week to do some fun stuff!

I think I'll make a list:

1. I cleaned house and flung stuff around like a mad person b/c Mom was on her way. It's always much funner to get it all together at the last minute. I feel very Trading Spaces when I do that. I only just finished painting the extra bed white yesterday, went and bought a mattress in the rain (strapped it to the top of the FJ...it was plastic wrapped), and zipped over to target today and bought this...cuz I felt like I needed something pretty in here!! I LOVE it and may just come live in this room myself! haha!

2. We have weird things growing in the aquarium!! Look at Warren's blog at some point I'll put pictures there, but OMG there is a worm/centipede looking thing that we finally saw out all the way today for the first time...and yesterday we saw finally the whole of another little organism which we believe to be TWO sea star things (the link is what they look like in our tank, we think that is what maybe we have) that all just spontaneously grew out of the LIVE ROCK! O.O

3. Warren started a new section of his Internal Med. rotation this week in infectious disease. He doesn't really care for the subject and is just going to hang in there for the next three weeks. He had his first med school patient that he's really followed die this weekend so he's a little sad too, but the guy had a "constellation" of problems (to use W's new word, lol) so I'm not really that surprised at the outcome.

4. It will be interesting to see how work pans out now that 2 ppl retired and 2 were RIFed (b/c we had two ppl not yet certified in library science, they are still in college taking their classes to be LMS's) so that leaves two positions for me to choose from but I'm trying to get them to create a 3rd spot to catalog all the "new" book donations that are in, AND my name is attached to a grant that if they win I could be the "director" and oversee that...so somewhere I will work for GISD next year just not sure where exactly.

K, I think that's all for now folks! Laters!

Upcoming RIF info...

Weblink for the newspaper article: http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=dd8960c8cbbc1a73

Board Meeting weblink (which should be updated soon with this weeks meeting added on):

http://www.gisd.org/1635102515318260/podcasts/browse.asp?A=399&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55715

And...

A Memo from our Principal's:
____________________________________________________________________
REDUCTION IN FORCE UPDATE
March 5, 2009

From: Mr. Bouldin and Ms. Wiley

§ School Board approved Phase II – reduction of teaching positions
§ School Board approved the staffing of 20 to 1 teacher/student ratio for next school year which would add additional teaching unit(s) to present campus enrollment count
§ Principals will meet with Human Resource and Superintendent Cleveland next week to finalize campus teacher numbers and names for reduction
§ As of date: teacher notification will occur prior to Spring Break
§ March 25, teacher names will go to School Board for the process of non-renewal positions due to reduction in force Friday, March 6 is deadline to be eligible for voluntary exit/retirement incentive. Paperwork needs to be completed, notarized and turned in to the Human Resource Office

TV Week...

It must be my week to be on TV! ABC Channel 13 out of Houston came down today to do an interview and shoot footage of a book drive that a Houston student, Jesse Woodall, did for Education In Action as part of his leadership service. Jesse is an 8th grader at St. Thomas Episcopal School in Houston and here is his press release:

1. Tell me a little about yourself. I am an 8th grade student at St. Thomas' Episcopal School in Houston.
2. Why did you organize a service project this year? I am part of Education in Action's Lone Star Youth Leadership Council, and as a member, I had to do a service project.
3. Tell me about Education in Action and the Leadership Council. I was referred to the Education in Action program by my 6th grade math teacher at Baines Middle School. You have to be a good student and be a leader at school to be a part of it. I have attended two of their summer camps. In 2007, I went to Austin, and in 2008, I went to the one in Houston/Galveston. The Houston camp is the last camp. Now I am working toward being a camp counselor. In order to be a counselor, you have to go through their Leadership Council program. It's a two year program where I have to do leadership activities and service projects.
4. What made you choose Operation H.E.A.R.T. as your project? I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but after Hurricane Ike hit, I knew that I wanted to do something to help the kids in Galveston. I decided that a book drive would be a good thing to do. I read a lot after the hurricane when we didn't have any power, and I thought that it would be something that everyone would support.
5. Where did you collect books? I started at my church (Southminster Presbyterian) and its school (Southminster School). I collected a little over 2500 books from them in November. I also collected some books from my friends and neighbors in Sienna Plantation (about 500). My biggest drive was at St. Thomas where I collected over 6100 books in one week!
6. Did you do it all by yourself or did you get help? I had help. I was supposed to recruit people to help me since this is a leadership project. My parents helped a lot, so did my sister. I also had help from many people at church. A couple of friends in my neighborhood helped me get my collection boxes ready, and several of my friends at STES helped me collect and count the books at school. Mrs. Stewart, the school librarian, was my faculty sponsor who helped me get things done at school. Two of my friends are going to Galveston with me on Thursday (This was last week) to help me deliver the books to the school district.
Anything else you would like to share? I knew that people would donate books, but I never would have guessed that I would collect so many! My goal was to collect 1000 children's books.

1,000!! ha! He certainly met his goal and I think he is an outstanding young man!

So anyways, today there was a board meeting and I knew that I needed to clean out the board room (it's where we sort the books b/c it has the most room). I decided to dress comfortably...so I wore jeans and a nicer button up shirt and my fuzzy slipper/scuff shoes that Mom got me for x-mas. I dressed down a bit because I knew I would be moving around alot and wanted to be comfortable. Plus, I didn't know if Teresa would be there to help me or not. She was out the day before throwing up sick and generally not feeling well.

But it was a pleasant surprise when I got there this morning and she was there, so we get the books moving and are relocating it all to where we want it (eventually we round up some janatorial help) and at 11:30 a.m. we get a call that Channel 13 wants to come down and interview...at 1:30 p.m. That is 2 hours away! Not much time to get ready and look Decent because The News is coming down! Thank goodness that I wore full-makeup and not lite-makeup (cause there's different levels of makeupness...full-makeup includes eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick...lite-makeup is base, lipgloss, and mascara). But I was not Decent and was not going to wear jeans on The News. So I had to go do emergency shopping at Ross to get pants (which also required shoes) and I found some really nice dk. brown slacks for 6.99 and dk. brown snakeskin pointy toed mules for 12.99!

Now ya'll I don't talk on TV because I will sound all Ya'llish Southern and will get Red With Embarassment and will talktofasttomakeanysense. So I told Teresa she would have to do it (she is dramatic) and she did a wonderful job and even squeezed out some tears for the reporter lady(tho she was kinda questioning and sort of making her cry to get drama on The News).

I've been looking around on their website but can't locate an online clip of it yet...so keep checking and I'll be posting it when I find it so you can watch me move books around in all the boxes.

Warren says I'm famous. :D lol

GISD Update

Over the past week and a half there have been Board meetings and stuff going on...here is the breakdown of what is going to happen as far as a RIF is concerned over the course of the next few months:

Currently there is a voluntary RIF incentive going on. The district needs 220 people to go with it broken down by catagory...my catagory in Curriculum & Instruction under "Librarian" needs 3 of us to go. Well, let me re-phrase that...the maximum amount of librarians that can leave and still get the incintive pay is 3.

The incentive amount is a percentage of your salary based upon how long you have been in the district. See below:
1 to 5 years - 1%
6 to 10 years - 3%
11 to 15 years - 5%
16 to 20 years - 7%
20+ years - 10%

Yep that's right....1%.....I think that's like $500 MAYbe. So of course I'm not going to opt out. If I opt out then I for sure don't have a job, but have only a little bit of money as cushion. If I wait and get RIFed then I could at least draw unemployment and THEN look for another job (well I'll still be looking anyways). If I don't get RIFed then I'm still going to be in some other job with GISD. It's just a drag not knowing...

...RETIRE ya'll!!! :) You can have your job back in a year!!

Also, another Burnet news article...

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=94a1a6b9043c8b81 ...all of the teachers in the article are people I work with...Kusnerick is my Kinder team leader.

Burnet News Article

On Friday there was a news article about Burnet...

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=cedc4d33dc85e942

Also, some of you have asked me what our enrollment is running, this was in an email from the Super this morning:

Since GISD’s reopening on Tuesday, Oct. 7 when slightly more than 4,450 students returned to eight of 12 Galveston ISD schools, enrollment has grown by more than 900 students and is now at 78% of the first day 2008-2009 enrollment.

The number of students returning when school reopened was nearly 65% of the enrolled students (6876) who reported on the first day of school in August. While enrollment numbers are not finalized until Oct. 31 each school year, the beginning enrollment was similar from 2007 to 2008.

I am so tired of Galveston. Driving to work in the morning is the most depressing thing, it sets the tone for the day & kills any kind of positive attitude I have going. We drive by (I'm commuting with the Art teacher) piles of trash & debris, houses that are leaning sideways, boats still sitting on the highway, flashing red stop lights, traffic that is made worse because of all the workers coming to work on the island...

Last week when the list I posted yesterday was told to us, it instantly killed any kind of work ethic I had going. If my school isn't opened up then why should I try to solicit donations of books and materials? If there is going to be a RIF, then why should I spend any time or effort on my job to filling out disaster relief forms for the library? Besides all that, what about UTMB? Will we even be living here come January?

I searched the 7 school districts north of Galveston that wouldn't be too far of a drive for job postings...but everyone has a full staff at this point.

Austin has one elementary librarian position open and 3 children's librarian openings in the public library system. Maybe moving wouldn't be so bad.

My body is so stressed from all of this that I missed my monthly last month, which I NEVER have ever had happen...but no worries I started yesterday. lol

I'm just tired. Tired of it all. Tired of seeing it; tired of smelling it (no kidding, it stinks still); tired of being here; tired of being in someone else's space both as a job and living arrangement. (For those of you who don't know, Warren is in our FEMA hotel and wrapping up surgery this week, and I am living in Mark's dining room on his air matress in his apartment). At this point, all I do is show up and get paid and at least there is some security in that. But I really just want to walk away, walk away and not come back. Thank God I don't have to deal with insurance people, although we still haven't gotten any money that I know of from FEMA so we are probably going to have to re-file or do another claim or something.

K, I'm going to go drive by my school that I'm contemplating breaking & entering to steal MY OWN THINGS back from. Then will drop some cat food off at the humane society and go drink half a bottle of wine & go to sleep.

Oh, & p.s. I have no internet at the apartment now, the network we were using secured themselves.

Later,

GISD Update...

Last Thursday & Friday, I was called over to one of our closed elementary schools to help clean out the library part of the building for, I was told, so families who are camping in their field area to be able to move into the school to live. So I guess when FEMA housing runs out, then Alamo Elementary will be opening up to those already living in the field around it to move into.

Per the notes my friend took from a small meeting with the Super last week...she said:

1. Right now Burnet's building has been stablized as far as carpet, dehumidifying, and spraying (?)...maybe for mold?

2. We are losing enrollment.

3. They can't keep putting money into a building that they may not use in the future.

4. The middle schools, Central & Weis, are priority because of over-crowding.

5. January will start looking closer at enrollment numbers and March will have a better idea of if/which school will need to close (right now there are 3 elementary schools closed, two here in Galveston and the one on Bolivar).

6. A district-wide RIF is possible but wouldn't happen until March.

7. If they do RIF, they will look at first your certification, then PDAS, and finally tenure.

8. Scott & Burnet may close if enrollment doesn't rise (if it gets up to 6,000 then they may need to keep both).

9. They are as of now not going to let people back into the buildings to collect personal items.

10. Pre-paid legal says that if they keep denying people access then we can file suit for our items in small claims court.

GISD Info

I received the following email today,

"Dear GISD Employees,

We want you to know that we are working diligently to restore our schools for your return. Each and every day we are meeting to receive the latest updates from Arnold Proctor and Fred Niccum about the conditions of our facilities. Additionally, we are attending all of the meetings with city and county officials, as well as, many other key people that are working around the clock to restore the infrastructure and city services to our Galveston community.


Report on the Conditions of Our Facilities/Campuses
The five campuses most adversely affected by Hurricane Ike were Ball High, Central, Scott, Burnet and San Jacinto, mostly due to flood and water damage. We continue to inspect our facilities daily and the reports seem to change as quickly as I can report/update the conditions. At the present time, the District has retained outside contractors that have access to heavy equipment and generators to come in and begin work on our most severely damaged buildings first. The majority of our campuses will be repaired and cleaned within the next 3 days; however, Ball, Central, Scott, San Jacinto, and Burnet will need some additional repair time. As soon as we are able, the HVAC systems will be checked for viability of operation. The number one goal of the entire clean up/restoration process is to dehumidify all of our buildings and keep them dry. GISD wants our facilities/campuses to be ready to go when the power and water come on line, whenever that might be. The GISD Transportation Center experienced high water levels on the west end of the island and plans are underway to evaluate the entire fleet. Seven of our school buses are continuing to assist the city of Galveston. Additionally, the Sheriff’s Department/Fire Emergency Response Services and the Department of Public Safety are using the Crenshaw campus on the Bolivar Peninsula as an Emergency Command Post. The Galveston Independent School District continues to partner with the city and county to lend a hand whenever we are asked to assist during this disaster aftermath recovery phase.

The following conditions need to be up and running before the District will be able to consider opening our schools:

· Safety -- Our facilities must have fully functioning (electricity, water supply, sewer, natural gas)

· Transportation

· Food Supplies

· Support Services (technology)

· Return of our Staff Members – - We are attempting to poll our staff members to see how many will be able to return to work between September 29th and October 3rd.

Please e-mail dyann_polzin@gisd.org to report your individual status!

Please state:
Your name
Assigned Campus
Grade Level/subject you teach
Job Assignment (non-teaching staff)

Presently, we will continue to work on the restoration and dehumidifying of our facilities. We are meeting daily to come up with the best plan possible for our children to return to GISD. We must consider safety first and we are continuing to partner with the City of Galveston as they work to bring our island back. We would like to aim for the target date of October 6th as our starting date to reopen the District; however, let me be very clear this is a TARGET DATE ONLY. Certainly this date is contingent on the city of Galveston being able to have the entire infrastructure functioning and working properly.

Communications Update
Currently, we have large generators set up at the District Support Center and our data systems and servers are functioning and we now have our GISD e-mail https://12.228.125.109/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.gisd.org/remote or https://12.228.125.109/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.gisd.org/mail system in place.

Additionally, the district Website is fully functional. Please go to https://12.228.125.109/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.gisd.org to read the most current updates available, as we proceed with our plans to reopen our schools.

Also, the phone system at the District Support Center (409) 766-5100 is working and we plan to update the recorded message on a regular basis (English and Spanish). Please feel free to call in for the most up-to-date information. We want to keep you informed and we will share as much information as we possibly can…

If you have not been able to return to the Island since Hurricane Ike and you plan to come back to the Island on Wednesday, September, 24th we plan to have staff members present at the re-entry point to distribute a GISD informational flyer along with other information that will be distributed by the City of Galveston.

I hope to see all of our GISD family soon!"

Today's Info...

Ok, so far no definite word or confirmation that Warren has to go to Temple yet to finish surgery. We are hoping to know by the end of the day...we were thinking they wanted students placed and ready to start on Monday.

GISD has the following news article on The Galveston County Daily News: http://galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=5af1a840c6959d1a

I have finally had a posting from the prinicpal via the secretary on: http://www.gisd.org/1635109142535307/Blog/browse.asp?C=54743&A=398&DomainID=&PostID=36&Month=0

She said, "I'm sending this message on behalf of Ms. Wiley. I spoke to her yesterday and she is well. Her regards to everyone and hopes everyone is fairing well through this ordeal. She asked that I share the following information with you: 1. PAYROLL- Direct Deposits will go out on time. No Checks will be mailed out! GISD will have a check distribution setup on Sept. 25th at the LaMarque Walmart from 8:00a.m.-12:00noon (this is ONLY for those who DO NOT have Direct Deposit). If you are not able to go to this location please email Elsie Schiro (Business Dept.) at elsieschiro@att.net let her know where you need your check mailed. Payroll corrections will be handled at a later date. We have not had many subs but if you see anyone that does sub please let them know about the check pickup location. 2. Several Galveston families are in shelters in Austin and San Antonio. Spread the word that they should be enrolled in that district (temporary). 3. Building status is stated on this webpage-please read. 4. Once cleared to report to school, we will go straight into work mode; making sure classrooms are ready and operable for students return. Ms. Wiley requested facilities place all teacher items in an area to be checked through before discarding. We will see what happened. 5. All CPU's should have been on tables. NO ONE should have had them on the floor since MIS came through to check they were off the floor; but if you moved them, then they are ruined. 6. TEA signed a 10 day waiver for days missed. WHEW!!! I have read everyone's comments and just feel numb. Take care everyone. I'm ready to get back. I have my boots and gloves and God will give me the strength. Syl".

News, finally...

Finally we have news on something! There are NO surgery slots available in Dallas...we think because their surgery courses run differently than UTMB's...they look like they are year long instead of blocked. Warren would have wrapped up trauma surgery this past week and moved onto plastics for the next 4 weeks but now we think he will just be placed into some kind of surgical rotation.

So, we may be relocating to Temple, TX where he can finish up his surgery rotation. He did have the option to take an Incomplete but he doesn't want to lose time on graduation. I am torn between going with him (GISD said that payroll will still be posting to our bank accounts) and staying and subbing in school districts that I am familiar with (Sam Rayburn, Bonham, Whitewright) not to mention connections at each one.

We will look into FEMA housing/hotel in Temple tomorrow.