Welcome

This is my new blog about what it is like to teach at an inner city high school.  My high school Central Falls High School (CFHS) gained notoriety in 2010 when it was signaled out as a failing school under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) due to low test scores and low graduation rates.  The school had to enter into a plan to correct the situation.  Because the teacher's union wouldn't agree to the transformation plan selected by the superintendent, which was one of the 4 plans outlined by NCLB, the superintendent had to resort to another plan which called for the firing of all teachers in the school.  This caused a huge stir both in the town and in the media. Our school made the national media and even President Obama commented on the situation.  Eventually the union and the superintendent agreed to follow the transformation model set out in NCLB and the transformation began.

Around the time CFHS was starting transformation I saw the story on the news and decided that I wanted to be a teacher there.  I saw CFHS as a place where there was both great need and great opportunity.  I spent the next year applying to be a Rhode Island Teaching Fellow and going through their intense summer institute in order to get my teaching certificate.  Due to the lucky star I was born under and years of hard work, I was in a position to be picked as one of 32 fellows from an application pool of 1400 that year.  Fall of 2011 found me in my very own classroom teaching physics at CFHS.

You'd think that putting a privileged, academically elite, middle aged woman into a teaching position at an urban high school is a recipe for disaster but actually this is one of the most amazing wonderful journeys that I have even been on.  This blog will outline parts of my journey.