While cleaning up some old files last weekend, I came across this card from a former student. I remember her, from about seven years ago when I taught special ed. She was a tough one. But she made it through. I ran into her about five years ago. She had a job, working at the local K-Mart. It is always great to hear the success stories. Puts all the rest of the NCLB crap into perspective.
My scanner at Camp Nick is junk. Just hit the graphic above to get a more readable image.
No good deed goes unpunished. This old adage pretty much sums up the Camp Nickleby Booster Club’s fundraiser car wash.
Labor Day promised to be a beautiful one, up here in the pines. The air was clean and crisp, with an assortment of puffy white clouds meandering through a clear, blue sky. The ladies from the Booster Club arrived and 7:00 a.m., equipped with buckets, sponges, car-washing soap, and even several bottles of Turtle Wax for those customers who might want to go the extra mile. Several student volunteers from the Camp Nickleby Motor Sports Club were even on hand to help out. Cars started trickling in as soon as church let out at 9:00 a.m. By 11:00 a.m., only eight cars had come through the car wash. Things were looking fairly dismal. The feeling of disappointment was palpable. The ladies of the club started second guessing the whole concept of the car wash and were wondering if they would be better off just sticking with bingo games on Monday nights. Then everything turned a corner. The girls from the Kit Kat Gentlemen’s Club a block down from Kmart went on their morning smoke break. They noticed the car wash and decided to volunteer their services. In fact, Candy, one of the dancers, has a daughter enrolled at Camp Nickleby. As is the traditional up here in the mountains, Candy is only twice her 16-year-old’s age, so it worked for everybody concerned. Well, Candy and her friend Tiger, stripped down to their car-washing attire, and began to get busy. It didn’t take too long before word got out on every cell phone in the pines. Tiger, spying a tetherball pole at the nearby elementary school, performed an impromptu performance for customers waiting their turn. Cars were backed up thirteen miles on Road 39.
Consumed with the spirit of the day, one of the fathers joined the car washers. DaleFernwood, father of the Fernwood twins, Mack and Darnell, showed up wearing a lovely little two-piece number, energetically waving a CAR WASH sign to attract even more customers. The ladies decided to extend the closing time of the car wash to 5:00 p.m.
Overwhelmed with the spectacle of the day, Booster Club President Era Mae Bullard is seriously considering going into Cedarville tomorrow and getting a tramp stamp at the Big Butterfly Tattoo Parlor. The other ladies tried to talk her out of it. Oh yeah, the club raised $17,549!
While driving through Hog Lick Corners last Saturday, I came upon this sign outside of the Eye of the Needle Baptist Church, and I figured, oh, what the hell! I'm sure there will be a huge turnout. I just hope they don't yell at the people in wheelchairs. I hate it when that happens, don't you? But then again, maybe those people are in wheelchairs for a reason? Hmmmmmmmm, one of the many unanswered questions of the universe.
The Camp Nickleby Booster Club will be conducting their first annual Fundraiser Car Wash this coming Monday, Labor Day, in the K Mart parking lot in Cedarville, from nine in the morning to two in the afternoon. The ladies of the booster club, known primarily for putting on a damn fine bingo game each Monday night at the Grange Hall, decided to try something just a little bit different. With the recent budget cuts that all schools in California are facing, the gals just thought it would be the right thing to do, and add some much-needed money into the club’s coffers.
The booster club ladies work mighty hard during the year, raising funds that are used for items such as No. 2 pencils, lined notebook paper, staples, paper clips and those little wooden coffee stirrers thingies for the faculty lounge. We don’t know what we’d do without their cheerful spirit around here.
The ladies are hoping to get a few volunteers to help out with the car washing. They promise to use biodegradable soap and 100% cotton towels for drying the automobiles. The price will be $5 for a car and $8 for a regular-size pickup, $20 for a cattle truck. They will also be offering a 25% discount to anyone who brings in a car recently purchased through the Cash for Clunkers program! I know there are a lot of them out there.
The Booster Club ladies look forward to your support this coming Monday. The ladies, pictured from left to right, are Anna Pannell, Katie Parker, Arvilla Coker, Mattie Robinson, Pearl Sanders, Dramita Pannell and Era Mae Bullard. The shadow is that of Fontina Merriweather.
Well, we’re into week number two of a new school year here at Camp Nickleby. The hills are alive with the sounds of the little dry sponges. All are eager to soak up as much knowledge as possible! Yeah, right. It will take some time for all of us to get back into the groove. A week before camp started, the counseling staff was here, getting ready for the new year. We worked on vision and mission statements (no, serious), got our rooms ready, and sat through a lecture by Superintendent Kim Chee, berating us for not being better teachers. “All of you are sooooo lazy,” she screamed. “I get here everyday at 5:30 a.m. and stay until 8:00 p.m.! If you were really serious about teaching, you would do the same, instead of taking off at 4:00 to get back to your cabins and nap. I could replace you all with those fine young people from Teach For America! How are we going to close the cheese mint gap?” Just made you feel all warm and fuzzy.
A HARD RAIN’S GONNA FALL Dr. Chee let us know that she wants to tie our pay with student performance, starting this year. Since we are a non-union charter school, we just have to bend over and take it. Not sure how this will affect me. Do I not get a raise if my kiddies can’t make a decent pinch pot? If they can’t mix the color orange? Do I depend on our math and English counselors to raise the test scores? Can’t wait! This Race To The Top crap is really getting to be a pain in the arse!
API SCORE COMES CRASHING DOWN Speaking of test scores, we received our state API scores from last spring, and it doesn’t look good. Chee really went through the roof! After several years of scores creeping upward, they came crashing down again. We lost about 47 points from last year! A large number of math scores were uncharacteristically low. Apparently, a substitute teacher during math testing allowed the kids to talk her into letting them use crayons to fill in the answer sheets! Of course, there was the usual number of math wizards who turned the answer sheets into connect-the-dots and made bunnies and hearts, which didn’t help either. To compound the problem, the error was not discovered at the ETS scoring facility in Sacramento until it was too late. The oily crayon residue gummed up the scoring machines and altered other schools’ test results, including our cross-mountain rival, Cruz Bustamante Preparatory Academy Strip Mall Charter High School. We’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop on this one. CHA-CHA-CHA CHIA POTUS The first project of the year always sets the tone for the rest of the year. This year, we’ll be making Chia Pet Heads of members of the Obama administration! All the kids seem to be quite excited about this project and can’t wait to get started. Each kid picked a member of the administration to model. No two alike. Unfortunately, three boys wanted to do White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel heads, and I had to intervene. Not really sure what this means, but I think it will be a good project.
And that’s the news from Camp Nickleby, where every youngster enjoys the great outdoors, clean fresh air, daily mountain hikes and NO CHILD'S LEFT BEHIND!
As I recall, these young ladies were writing little missives to each other last semester during my wonderful lecture on pueblo pottery. They both recieved an 'F' on the test, but received an 'A' for note writing under the radar. Once again, doing our part here at Camp Nick to close that all-important achievement gap! Thanks kids!
I opened my mailbox a few days ago, and much to my delight, there before me was the latest issue of NEA Today Magazine. This issue features a Q & A with Secretary of Education Spellings Duncan. Here is what Arne says concerning how poverty affects kids’ performance in schools. And I thought Spellings was delusional.
On the subject of poverty, Lori Mayo, a high school English teacher from New York City asked our basketball-playing leader:
Test scores are tied to parents' incomes. When will politicians realize that although schools can help to mitigate some of the disparities in society, we cannot be the great equalizer that will leave no child behind?
Secretary Duncan: I disagree. I see extraordinary high-performance schools where 95 percent of children live below the poverty line, where 95 percent are graduating, and 90 percent of those who graduate are going on to college.*
I think we have to raise expectations. We have too many examples-whether it's inner-city urban schools or rural schools-where, year after year, class after class, not just one child somehow breaking out in some miracle, but where schools and school systems are routinely beating the odds. So I would really challenge that teacher to look at what's happening, in New York City and other places around the country, rural and urban, where children from desperate poverty are being very, very successful because adults had the highest of expectations, pushing so hard to help them.
I know how tough that work is. I know it doesn't happen overnight. But this is the most important work going on today. And we have too many examples of success now to think that it's not possible. It is happening consistently, more so today than ever before, which gives me tremendous hope for the future.
WHERE THE HELL IS THIS HAPPENING?
A NEW FEATURE AT CAMP NICKLEBY!
CAMP NICKLEBY TREASURE TROVE
From time to time, treasures are found in the classroom; sometimes in abandoned desks, sometimes in hiding places throughout the classroom, or sometimes hidden in long-forgotten textbooks. I will be gladly sharing these insightful little tidbits with you as they are discovered! Treasure Trove is a copyrighted feature of Camp Nickleby.
Our Camp Mascot
Teddy, the flying pig
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I am sure there are some people who enter the teaching profession with the desire to crunch their way daily across the crack-vial-littered streets of crime-wrecked inner-city neighborhoods in order to put in 15-hour working days, but I doubt there are many such.”
Nestled in the Sierra Nevada, just south of Sequoia National Park, Camp Nickleby was founded by a group of under-qualified, disgruntled high school teachers. Knowing that within a few years, many public schools will be closed down because of NCLB mandates, we thought we’d cash in on the school vouchers/charter schools scam ASAP, before people started to wise up.
We offer a comprehensive, high school curriculum to those students who might not be considered the sharpest knives in the drawer, the brightest bulbs in the sign, or are a few Bradys short of a bunch.
We here at Camp Nickleby believe that every child can learn. Something. Anything. We are genuinely committed to teaching the children we have, not the children we'd like to have.
Camp Nickleby VERSE 1 We're stuck here at Camp Nickleby, cuz our algebra's not that good, We'd love to write some letters home, only if we could. Other kids all get involved with sports and band and choir, We like to hide under our bunks, our test scores go no higher
CHORUS Welcome to Camp Nickleby, we're together with our kind, We love the hiking on the trails, where No Child's Left Behind
VERSE 2 We love the mountain air and pines, the campfires and the songs, Many games for us to play, but our pings are missing pongs. We check the sky and look to see if pigs are really flying, We keep ourselves at the bottom, without really trying
CHORUS
VERSE 3 Failure’s not an option that we can exercise, Our test scores always stay the same, never will they rise. We try and try and try to be the best that we can be, We know we're not allowed to flunk, but it's a possibility.
CHORUS
VERSE 4 Our parents give us lots of books, hoping that we'd read, But reading really hurts our head, it’s something we don’t need. All those test we have to take, just really hurt our eyes, Maybe when we get good grades, we’ll actually see pigs fly.
CHORUS
VERSE 5 We really hate those smartie kids, over at Camp Grenada, They get their smarts and so much more from their muhddahs and their fahddahs, The spelling bee will be next week, and then they’re gonna see, A heavy, heapin’, helpin’ of our hospitality.
CHORUS
Testing, testing
'Twas the morn before testing and all through the school, Not a scantron was missing, nor spindled, nor spooled
The proctors were lined up with faces of glee, And there is our Principal, we are happy to see
AYP, API and NCLB, We're drowning in an educational acronym sea
The CAT6, the ASVAB, we can’t get enough, That Exit Exam wasn’t really that tough
Could those in Sacramento pass these tests that we’ve got? Please tell me, what the hell is a box-and-whisker plot?
Our pencils are poised for that big S-A-T, If this doesn’t work we’ll Be All We Can Be
By 2014, a bell curve won’t be bent, All kids will be scoring at one hundred percent!
They say in four years if our goals are not met, Experts will show us how to hit that target
They’ll invade us with clipboards and skulls full of theory, But they fled the classroom, it was all much too scary
Our lexicon gets Bushwacked, with a big Texas drawl, It all sounds so believable, ending in y’all
Did Dubya really say, “Make the pie higher?” Malaprops, mixed metaphors, never will he tire
He is so easy to misunderestimate, Does he have the credentials to pontificate?
The miracle in Texas wasn’t as good as it looks, Apparently Spellings was just cookin' the books
We asked our Governator for pencils, books and such, He replied, "In Cal-E-fornia, schools are s@#t-out-of-luck."
Our best history teacher was quickly asked to leave, After thirty years of teaching, we all had to grieve
A former speech writer and a diplomat too, Two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Marines to boot
His final day was Friday, and we all sat down and cried, With no B.A. in history, he wasn't HIGH QUALIFIED!
And George Dubya said in a voice so gentler and kind, Happy testing to all, ain't NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
