Prologue: It’s May 12th, 2022. And I am tired. Emotionally drained. I don’t remember the last time I took a beer out of the fridge as a way to detox, which is what I did last night. I made some graduation leis on stream to do something mind-numbing. Today we’re revisiting pt. 1 of thisContinue reading “Department Head dealing with entitlement and side-deals pt. 3”
Tag Archives: BalasbasSays
Department Head dealing with entitlement and side-deals pt. 2
Prologue: This past month has been hell. And not because of the students. I don’t know what it is with teachers not knowing how to write emails or communicate in a professional manner. But it’s hella annoying that teachers do not understand how to act in an office/company setting. The last time I wrote, IContinue reading “Department Head dealing with entitlement and side-deals pt. 2”
Department Head dealing with entitlement and side-deals
Prologue: I’ve already made it very clear to my department that the direction of the master schedule will be based on the data from the Spring student course selection. This is not my decision, but instructions from the admin and counseling team. Makes sense, that’s a student-centered approach. Depending on the courses applied to willContinue reading “Department Head dealing with entitlement and side-deals”
Breakthrough San Francisco
I started my career in education with a non-profit organization known as Breakthrough. This nationwide organization believes that all young people should have access to quality education and a clear path to college. They provide support for students from 5th-12th grade. And the location I joined was at the SF Day School, just down theContinue reading “Breakthrough San Francisco”
It’s been a long week
Prologue: I only intended to write once this week. And make a post about it. But this week was hell. I know there has been worse. Especially in January. But I think there was so much going on. I think this reflected the epitome of what normalizing work within a pandemic is like. It’s aContinue reading “It’s been a long week”
I need a better relationship with time
This has been an exhausting 24 days. And this last week alone feels like the most exhausting. 6:45AM. Raisin bread in the toaster for 2 minutes. Hygiene stuff. Change. Grab lunch out of the fridge. Start the car. Hour commute. Class. Meetings. Hour commute. 5-6PM. Try to relax. Dinner. Plan. Shower. Shit. Sleep. Do itContinue reading “I need a better relationship with time”
Saving face over saving students
This is ridiculous. Seeing the strain and pressure, COVID is putting on students. They all see that the system is failing them—prioritizing their dollar amount over their actual life. I thought that being a department chair I could help enact some change. But I realize I’m still too small. I only now have a titleContinue reading “Saving face over saving students”
It’s not as bad as I thought: Progress as Department Chair
It’s been about four months since this semester started—four months as department head. At the onset, I was pretty nervous. As soon as I got the position in the spring, I was ready to take on responsibility. Though the previous chair did not want to put anything on me since I was not getting paid—IContinue reading “It’s not as bad as I thought: Progress as Department Chair”
Shelter-in-Place Log #4
School has been closed since March 13th, 2020 and Governor Gavin Newsom ordered a Shelter-in-Place on March 17th, 2020. Despite other pandemics in recent decades (H1N1, SARS, Ebola, etc.) there hasn’t been a global pandemic or even state-wide shutdown during those times. And in accordance to SFUSD’s Continuity of Learning Protocol, all assignments at thisContinue reading “Shelter-in-Place Log #4”
Shelter-in-Place Log #3
March 25, 2020: Today the superintendent announced that six Bay Area school districts will extend the closure through May 1st and SFUSD being one of them. Like I mentioned in one of the previous logs— I am surprised and not surprised that they have extended the closure. I’m glad they did keeping in mind public safety, but now whatContinue reading “Shelter-in-Place Log #3”
Balasbas Says 