Schedules are done, and two days early.
Me. Early.
I hope you got what you wanted. Hmm. Nope. I made sure most of you got what you wanted. And I tried really hard for all of you, just it didn’t always work out perfectly.
Do you give credit for effort?
Anyway, enjoy the day off tomorrow. I am looking forward to people searching for my mistakes.
Even though we are weeks behind on college, and fewer people than usual are getting first choices, we put in for everyone to at least get ONE of their choices. Holding breath – we’ll have a good idea by the end of this week if we have serious problems, and there’s a good chance we’ll know your actual classes by final exam time.
Regular classes and scheduling? We’ll start this week, and most of that goes really quickly. I’m not planning to have schedules ready before the term ends, but who knows. You’ll probably get them the morning of February 2, when you avoid the groundhog’s shadow and return to school.
It’s weird, thinking that this might be the last Spring schedule I write… Ooh! Feed’em sir.
Who knows? This is likely my last cycle doing this. But here goes. Spring scheduling has officially started.
Juniors turned in elective preferences and college preferences Wednesday and Thursday. And seniors had small-group planning meetings all day today.
There may still be time to revise… but the college will likely get locked in fast.
If you are among the 14 seniors or 8 juniors who have not met with me… you know.
Sophomores, freshmen, your schedules stay the same.
Except seminar. Everyone picks new seminars. Even me.
(wandering campus? children’s literature?)
Come on. Admit it. You know I play favorites.
2? Not a favorite, but a favorite punch line
Me: “and all prime numbers are odd…”
Credulous student: “No, no. 2 is even!”
Me: “and it’s prime?
Cs: “Yes”
Me: “That’s odd…”
And I like 37. 
And don’t get me started on 11.
But US News put our school at 29 last year, and 19 this year, and while it is complimentary, it is also annoying. Cross out those primes.
Last year it was 23 Stuy, 29 us, 30 something Science. This year 19 us, 31 Stuy, 58 Science. But it’s based largely on AP courses, and I think on kids actually taking them, and on kids passing them.
There’s a few bad things here. First, it puts pressure on schools to give more kids more APs than they really can handle. Our mismanaged neighbor up the block has started almost forcing kids to take more APs, just because of the stupid rankings. Not good for the kids, not for the other kids in those classes, and, in the long run, not for the school.
Second, it puts pressure on us to put more kids in APs. I am pretty confident that the selection procedures we’ve set up over the last four years will protect us from the sort of arbitrary nonsense that happens elsewhere, but still, there’s that little bit of invisible pressure.
Third, it’s actually based on numbers from 2 years ago, which kind of means it has nothing to do with you. How’s that!?
For me, when I see kids laughing at school (not in class! that’s not funny!) and smiling in the hallway, pushing themselves to do well, putting up with extra work because it is worthwhile, making smart college choices, and getting into good schools…. there’s our ranking. I don’t need a magazine to put a number on it. When I see every year the demand for our school going up, when that many of you really really want to come here, when teachers and administrators from other places want their own kids here, people who know, there’s our ranking.
Last year we had a #29 banner up for a while. I cringed, and eventually it came down. This year, class act, the principal sent out a memo whose subject was #19, but didn’t make any other reference to the ranking, just talked about how it was good working together. The message was positive, and it was also “we don’t care a lot.” Eventually it will be “we don’t care at all” and then I will put 29 and 19 back on my Favorite Prime Number list.
HSAS just had its fourth hike (first cold-weather version). And I have a specialty.
Break Neck Ridge 2007 – rode back with Shari (who missed the train)
Break Neck Ridge 2008 – broke off from group with Liz and Katherine and Tiffany (was there a fourth?) and did the Underhill Trail instead
Break Neck Ridge 2009 – missed that one – there was a middle school event at school
Mount Taurus, December 2009 – broke off from group and fell back with Ruby and Una. Caught much more snow! Missed target train, and rode back with Una and Thoman
Now, sometimes it might be fun to be out front, trying to half-jog with the cross country guys. But I don’t mind the back group. In ‘08 it was a challenge, a good challenge, to keep the girls (especially Liz) going. And there we were, at the end, having tried something that seemed almost too hard, but managing to finish.
And this time, I didn’t know the freshmen. Turned out to be really nice to listen to them talk about themselves and how they are adjusting to high school. And we solved some puzzles. And because we were slower, we caught more snow. Much more. All the while really pleasant conversation. Freshmen can be sociable…
Footwear! Better footwear would have helped, at least a little. The snow was really impressive. Huge flakes at the beginning. Snowflake-shaped snow flakes. But as we neared the bottom, we’d gotten fairly wet. And we had a few stumbles (no big falls) that I think resulted in part from fatigue. By the time we hit the farm, the energy was fading. And by the time we hit the plank bridge… just three planks… snow-covered… I walked, slowly, turned and told them that I was nervous. And they crossed faster than I had… but on all fours.
So we’re on the road, time is tight, Ruby’s held together better, I suggested she push ahead, and she did. Thoman said she made the train as the doors closed. He and Olivieri met us, then Olivieri left, and me and Una devoured a small pizza, almost missed the next train! but Thoman got us on, and we had an easy return to Marble Hill.
I didn’t pay much attention. But there was a lot of cheering. And the place was packed.
There were a good number of alumni who showed – especially those who just left 5 months ago.
Here’s who I think was there:
Whitney, Josh, Travis, Esteban, Sara, CJ, Marlene, Melissa, Dan, Ardiana, Ron, Sarai, Alec, Other Dan, Mychaela, Gemma, Andrew, Brigitte, Cole, Francis (who barely said hi – what was that about?), Mike, Veronica, Kristina, Keslie (see that uniform??), Chinaza, Lamine, Ani, Jennifer, Ariel, Jordan, Saddan, Yannis, Stephanie, Kim, Alex the girl, other Stephanie, Afsana, Sangeetha, Silva, Cindy, Timothy, Chris, Megan, Valerie, Malack, Jake
Here’s who I don’t remember seeing:
Robert, Ryan, Hiroshi, Tova, Hyatt, Alex the boy, Thomas, Yenyu, Tiffany, Eric, Dennis, Catherine, Obi, Other Robert, Amanda, Zhaoyu, Justin, Belinda, Michael, Al, Jasper, Rhonda, Algy, other Andrew, Kaitlyn, Jaranne, Janna, Roman
And I am missing a few… I’m sure I’ll be really embarrassed…
As we near Thanksgiving, alumni sitings may become quite frequent. Tonight? Trav, Jordan, Saddan, and Josh, wandering up and down Bedford Park, after the Thanksgiving food at Lehman ran out…
Wednesday I expect more alums than we can count, especially class of ‘09, almost done with their first term, back in NYC in large numbers, drawn to HSAS. Why? They want to see the wonderful teachers (ahem), and what’s happened to the school, and their friends in lower grades.
But they also know that other members of their class will be there – it is a convenient spot to meet and share stories from their first three months apart in the last four and a half year.
Walking around the reservoir, way too slowly, after 4.
By Bella’s house, but across the street, we almost bumped into each other.
Hello, hello. How are you? Fine and you?
And that was it.
Sunday was gorgeous, and I walked to Riverdale Avenue (up the 238th St steps: 16+16+16+16+14+14+14+14+huff+….+puff) and found I had gone to the wrong store.
So I head over to Starbucks on Johnson for a latté, and the counter kids are fooling around, and if I’d hesitated 1 more minute I could have had a free something tall and sweet, too bad, and as I step out I look at the Kosher Deli across the street.”Now,” I think, “didn’t Dimitre say he worked at a Kosher Deli somewhere in Riverdale?” So I went. And he did.
“Mr. Halabi!” Like he was excited. Not something I remember from senior year! And I came in, and we chatted for a moment. “You’ve got to try our hotdogs, they’re the best, and they’re only a dollar.” I said yes, mustard only, took out a dollar. “No,” he said, “it’s on the house.”
The house stood at the register, grimacing ever so slightly.
[Updates: Adonis filled in a few details. 11/15]
Our second year was a big year. No more classes in the APEX – we had our own building. No more just one grade – we had freshmen and sophomores. Sixty-odd kids? Now 150. No more teensy staff of 6½ teachers and 5 others. Now just a tiny staff of 12 teachers and 7 others. Classes dropped to under an hour, but met four times instead of three times each week. And we started doing some big things with just one grade at a time… We were much closer to being an actual school.
We said hello and goodbye to some students. Annie went to Lehman. Melissa to JFK. But we added Fariza, and Blessan, and Debra, and Taquana.
In Social Studies Mr. Mansdorf and Ms. Rice were joined by Mr. Elinson. In math I was joined by Mr. Sacchini – and this was the first year I taught fewer classes (3½) to allow time for scheduling. I had two algebra classes, and one Precalc. Mr. Rodriguez joined Ms. Villani in foreign language. This was the last year that we taught Italian. Mr. Evangelista became our first Chemistry teacher. And Ms. Cochin joined Mr. Murphy in English. I think Mr. Schulman became full-time that year, and he may have begun deaning as well.
The new office was fuller. Ms Girolamo was the Assistant Principal, and Ms. Wellington worked alongside Ms. Garcia. The back office was a new thing for us. Mr. Schulman, Ms. Fiore and our new counselor, Ms. Gilman shared the space. The first room on the right, where Ms. Harris works, was empty.
The teachers were rattling around the building as well. We all had our own, unshared rooms. Mansdorf, Rice and Elinson in 117, 119, and 104 respectively. Me and Sacchini in 133 and 127. Murphy and Cochin in 134 and 125. Villani in 128, Rodriguez in 124. Only the science teachers had to share at all. I think Evangelista and Fiorello were 90% of the time in 120, but one class may have had to meet in 126(?) a couple of times a week. 106 and 108 were probably completely unused.
The new class was much bigger than the old class – about 90 versus 60. They were still mostly Bronx kids, with a huge number (14??) from one school: Pace Academy (MS118). I think 141 was number 2.
My group at Sturbridge included Scott Miller, I remember that. It was a really nice day. On the Boston trip in the Spring, we put electrical tape on the doors. I stayed up for the first half of the night, Elinson took the early AM shift. And I kept catching Roger and TJ and who else? Sean? trying to sneak out. So I went to bed, and there was a half hour gap before Elinson. And when Elinson got up, all the electric tape had been removed from the student doors, and was on mine… TJ sat next to me in the front of the bus on the way home. Elinson had similar company on the other bus. I didn’t go on the sophomore trips to Philly and DC (and in fact, have never been on a trip to either one), and nothing was so exciting that I heard about it… I seem to recall that we did the overnights on the same Thursday/Friday, so we essentially shut the school for the trips.
Some parts of the schedule would seem strange today. Music was afterschool, with Jonathan something or other (not me). The extra class during the day for sophomores was a second year of research. There was still only one lunch for everybody. Some freshmen had Global with Elinson – and US with Elinson too! Seminar, I’m pretty sure it was on Tuesdays that year. I want to say that PE was separated by grades. We introduced AP and non-AP Global 3 that year, that was a new thing.
We lost students after our second year. Maybe I’ve got the years mixed up… Talisa didn’t make it through her first year. She was on campus this year, working at the bookstore, in school. It was nice to see her after such a long time. Little Courtney transferred somewhere in Queens, and Mandy retook the test and went to Stuyvesant. Weird Esther moved to New Jersey. Matt Stein transferred somewhere in Queens, and Sachet went to Truman. I wonder if I’ve missed anyone? From the sophomores, Phil Choy moved to Jersey, and Tahirah went to Georgia, and Danielle Jones went south and Elizabeth Adams went to California, but maybe that was the following year?
I think our first dance was that year, and I’ve never been to one of our dances, and probably don’t want to ever go, but I know what happened at that first dance, but I’m not telling, not here. We did an International Night for the first time, too (I think?), lots of fun, even if there was less to talk about.
The school newspaper, Common Sense, started that year. I was the first advisor. Tiarra was the one who wanted it, and we said ok. It was nothing like what we have now, but it did come out, and students did write it, and it had the same title.
I think basketball started that year, too, [Adonis says yes, with Coach Van Voorhis for the boys. His mom's a professor at Lehman. Neither one of us remembers who coached the girls.] but I’m not so good with sports details.
And I’m probably missing tons and tons more, but this is what I recall, off the top of my head. Go on and fill in details, make corrections, tell stories, whatever. Make the comments interesting, but not too interesting, ok?
