Yo, Semite!

Who knew that Yosemite, when divided into two words, made "Yo Semite"? I did not notice that until just now when I was trying to come up with a clever blog title. If an anti-semite is someone who hates Jewish people, then I suppose a Semite is one who embraces them, right? So, "Yo Semite!" is like saying hello to someone who is pro-Jewish people.

So I'm going to Yosemite. After spending 3 days in San Diego with Mark, Clemens, and Chris, I'm now off to Yosemite with Pam, my firefighting and life saving girlfriend. It's my last hurrah before the school year begins. So - hurrah!

Where exactly shall we be in Yosemite, a very large place indeed? Well, not quite sure. I suppose I should probably put that here so in case we go missing you'll know where to send a search party. I don't know if there will be any cell phone reception for me to audio blog from, but if there is, you can bet I'll be the first person in internet history to have a "bear blog" as I watch from the safety of a tree while Pam dispatches the bear with her "bare" hands.

School starts on the 29th. The week prior we have trainings and such and I get to put my classroom back together.

And, for those of you (Mom) who've been waiting to hear, we got the results back on the state test and our school did very, very well. It looks like across the state schools improved, but we improved A LOT. Our goal was to improve 10 points and we improved 47 points - the most in our district. Our school's overall score is now a 645, with 800 being the state goal for all schools. My students did particularly well - the percentage of my kids who are at proficient or better in language arts improved from 8% to 20% and in math from 19% to 43%. These scores may seem really low, and they are. But the state average in math, for example, is 44%. And in context, if you've been hearing me talk about my kids all year, you'll realize that this is really quite a feat and a highlight of my career.