The Only Constant in Life is Change...

After devoting the morning to the Inauguration activities/ceremony/parade, my students were administered their winter dibels test to see if they met a benchmark of 68 WPM (words per minute). We've been working really hard knowing this test went from a fall benchmark of 44 WPM to a winter score of 68 wpm then jumps to 90 wpm in the spring. I truly feel that preparation is the key to success...no matter what the test. In the fall, 6 of my students were not even close to the fall BM of 44 wpm so the winter BM of 68 wpm seemed, somewhat, out of reach for those students. While I am not an advocate for "No Child Left Behind" and, quite honestly, consider that phrase a nightmare, I decided to envelope that phrase with everything in me. While those 6 students might not benchmark according to what the "state" says a BM is, I was bound and determined that their score was going up. Extra work with the reading coach, extra reading passages for practice and sending home extra passages, getting my classroom library in order for access to reading when the librarian needed "shelving time" and just plain, old fashioned hard work and praise. Well, while I did not deliver the inaugural speech today or swear in a President, I did receive the dibels report for my class and every single student improved their dibles score, some by 200%! I don't know if it was the nostalgia surrounding the new President or what, but today was a good day that was beget from a feeling of success that began because we did not give up. Change doesn't mean you've forgotten what got you here in the first place. It just means you're going about things in a different way. Sometimes, that's a good thing. Thank you, Lord for this day and all the successes felt by so many of your children today. You are truly a Loving God.