Missing keys and magic standards

I sat across from the new ESL teacher at lunch in the Teachers cafeteria.

I was in the Teacher's cafeteria because I was locked out of the  Teacher's Center.

I wanted to go the Teacher's Center since I was locked out of the Resource Room.

The one everyone told me to just ask for the key.

Which I did.

Three times.  And complained to the principal, but still I have no key to the Resource Room and no key for the Teacher's Resource Center.  At least the teacher's cafeteria was open - or I would have been standing on the street.

Like I did- all second period, because although I don't officially begin my day until third period, the early session was in the middle of a fire drill and I couldn't get in the school

"How, are you?"  my uncle's family asked at the gathering last night,

"Can't complain,"  I respond, because they are very, very nice people who I only see once a year.

But apparently I can.

But I digress from the story of the new ESL teacher.

She's worried about the young man in her fifth period class.  She gave a test, an easy test, and he kind of just doodled all over it.

So I looked up his name in the IEP program and guess what?  He has a classification of intellectually disabled .  (That's what the program said, I didn't make it up)

He has an alternate assessment designation - which means somewhere, somehow, someone determined he had an IQ of less than 65.

The class is a general education high school English class.

"So what should  I do with him?"  New ESL teacher asks.

"Teach him English,"  Old jaded special ed teacher replies.

But I am being flippant.

I have a different student, with same classification in a self contained algebra class.

While the rest of the class struggles to line up the terms in the equation and distinguish 3x form 3 + x,  this young man stares at the worksheet.

He will never be registered to take the exam the class is  preparing for.  

And I'm not trying to teach him anything useful.  I'm too busy trying to get the rest of the class to squeak a passing grade on an exam in a subject that they've taken five times already. (true-not an exaggeration)

The day continued. 

I was locked out of the Resource Room again after lunch.  As soon as the ninth period group got comfortable in the nice airy English room, someone came down from the Special Ed office with a key, opened it and returned upstairs with the key. We all squeezed back into the green house,we use as a resource room. 

Because it was Monday  we ended the day with a department meeting.

We heard all about rigor and raising the standards and preparing our students for the twenty first century through the magic of Common Core Learning Standards.

Like that might be easier than getting my own key for the Resource Room.