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Post by 19delta on Mar 29, 2023 21:24:51 GMT -6
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Post by 19delta on Mar 26, 2023 14:42:24 GMT -6
d@mn you. Delete this now before someone else reads it and thinks it is a good idea. Because that seems EXACTLY like what BOEs and state dept of educations would think is a good idea. Currently our state did something similar specifically focused on dyslexia. The university a buddy of mine went to made all education majors go co curricular and get certified in a content area and special education. They claimed it was to make them more whole in their pedagogical practices but really it was when it was hard to get a teaching job in some areas and certifications so they could report that their education majors were being hired at a higher rate. The only problem was that they were getting hired in jobs they didn’t want. Great way to set up your alumni… Once I had heard this, I figured at some point we are all going to be “certified” sped teachers. About 15 years ago, I thought about getting certified in SpEd to make myself more marketable. Fortunately, I never did it. If I did, I would have been put in a SpEd classroom and would have never been allowed to leave.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 26, 2023 6:30:27 GMT -6
My wife's school was so desperate for SpEd, they paid for her to get certified and gave her the job before she even enrolled in classes. She was the only applicant. I think we are on the verge of special education laws being appeased by having all teachers take some mandatory training sessions to be certified in special education services instead of trying to train and incentivize hiring to get enough qualified candidates. Everyone will be worse off but it will look good on paper to lawmakers. It’s purely speculation but I just don’t see any other way for the compliance of laws for delivery accommodations will be met. When I first started teaching, I could count my SpEd students on one hand. And they were SpEd for something like dyslexia, which is a real thing. Now, I have dozens of kids with IEPs and 504 plans. And, by a large margin, they are mostly for behavior issues. Parents really push hard to get an IEP or 504 for their kid. I don't get it. I don't understand why a parent would want their kid labeled. When my youngest was in grade school, a teacher thought he was ADHD. Told my wife and I that he needed to be medicated and wanted him evaluated for SpEd. We said no. Our argument was that he needs to figure it out. We told her that if he was being a dope in the classroom and wasn't doing his work, she should contact us and we would handle it on our end. And you know what? He figured it out. He had an Associate's in Engineering before he graduated high school and is now about halfway through the US Navy nuke program down in South Carolina. I have to wonder if things would have been different if we had crippled him with an IEP. For a lot of parents, it's like some weird contest to have the most messed up kid. It used to be that the kids who were celebrated were the ones who had some special skill or ability. They were really smart. They were great at sports. They were good artists or musicians. But they had something special about them that they worked at and they excelled. Now, it seems that if you have a kid who is just average, that's not good enough for parents. They have to come up with something to make the kid "exceptional" even if it is something bad. We have kids in our school with ridiculous accommodations. They can take breaks whenever they want. They can leave class and go down to the gym to shoot hoops. They have an aid who writes for them. They get candy or prizes at the end of the day if they actually manage to trip over the hilariously low bar for their daily behavior goal. They are exempt from doing work or having consequences for misbehavior. Eligibility usually gets waived if they are out for sports. Those kids and their parents run the school and they know it. I used to take solace in the fact that the real world is going to come for those kids fast. And they are going to end up in some dead-end job or living with Mom and Dad because they can't function in the real world without all the propping up to which they have become accustomed. But, even that might be ending. And when these kids can't function in the adult world, it might end up being our fault anyway (LINK).
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Post by 19delta on Mar 26, 2023 6:04:53 GMT -6
2. Budgeting- Do they have enough money to pay every teacher who deserves a raise? If you think so you haven't done this long enough. They'll budget a certain number of Golden Tickets and that'll be it. To me this is a scam to make it look like they're Doing Something but won't actually help teachers. Yep. And those Golden Ticket are most assuredly going to the administration's toadies and the "cool kids".
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Post by 19delta on Mar 25, 2023 20:02:53 GMT -6
Eh, it does depend on the position. PE or social studies jobs can still be filled. Maybe the number and quality of applicants is down, but I can guarantee that principals would much rather have to find a PE or social studies teacher than SpEd, math, foreign language, or industrial arts. Our district was so hard up to keep one of our SpEd teachers from leaving that they worked out a new position for her in which she gets to work from home after lunch. That’s not going to happen with PE or social studies. My wife's school was so desperate for SpEd, they paid for her to get certified and gave her the job before she even enrolled in classes. She was the only applicant. Yep. That’s rapidly becoming the norm.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 25, 2023 17:23:04 GMT -6
I also agree that districts should have more flexibility in hiring in-demand teachers. Teachers licensed in SpEd, math, foreign language, industrial arts, etc, etc, SHOULD make more money than PE and Social Studies teachers. With Illinois' teacher shortage, every position is in demand. Eh, it does depend on the position. PE or social studies jobs can still be filled. Maybe the number and quality of applicants is down, but I can guarantee that principals would much rather have to find a PE or social studies teacher than SpEd, math, foreign language, or industrial arts. Our district was so hard up to keep one of our SpEd teachers from leaving that they worked out a new position for her in which she gets to work from home after lunch. That’s not going to happen with PE or social studies.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 25, 2023 12:18:08 GMT -6
I will say this- I believe my particular district absolutely needs to reexamine the compensation structure. I personally think that those taking positions outside the classroom should not be paid the same or (worse) more than classroom teachers. These interventionists, specialists, "coaches" (not athletic but curriculum coaches or behavior coaches etc) should receive less than classroom teachers. And from an impartial point of view (because it negatively would impact me) I think that various teaching positions need to be compensated differently as well. An Elementary art teacher who sees 10 30 minute classes a day should not be paid the same as a 1st grade teacher who is with those students at all times save for lunch or enrichment class (such as art). A HS librarian should not be paid the same as an elementary librarian who has the responsibility of running a classroom as well as book checkout. I have decided that in the education world, they got things backwards. The NON classroom related parts of education need to be run much more like a business, and they need to get away from the business mindset when discussing classroom teachers and instruction. I agree with a lot of what you posted here, Coach. Regarding the academic "coaches", I worked at a district with low test scores (in other words, high poverty). Because our test scores were so low, state and federal laws required the district to hire "coaches" for each curricular area, including PE. Ostensibly, these "coaches" were supposed to be subject-matter experts who could help the other teachers in the department implement best practices in the classroom. In reality, the coaches were typically the longest-tenured members of each department and their biggest "contribution" was sending a couple links from Google searches a few times a week. The good thing was that we always had cool parties because each department now had a full-time, in-house party planner! I also agree that districts should have more flexibility in hiring in-demand teachers. Teachers licensed in SpEd, math, foreign language, industrial arts, etc, etc, SHOULD make more money than PE and Social Studies teachers.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 24, 2023 5:05:32 GMT -6
Our district is going through contract negotiations. The BOE and administration want us to give up the salary schedule for a different compensation system. To my knowledge, every time a school district has got rid of the salary schedule, the pressure to do that has always come from the BOE and the admin and not from the teachers. So, my questions is, why do BOEs and administrators generally oppose salary schedules while teacher unions support them?
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Post by 19delta on Mar 23, 2023 17:17:41 GMT -6
Chalk free weight room here. Our principal doesn’t let us use it. Oh. I was just kidding based on previous discussions. Your weight room is pretty new isn't it? About 15 years old. But really nice. I’ve been asking to use chalk since I got here but no success yet. Compared to most, I have it really good here. If not using chalk is the price I need to pay for working in a weight room like this, it’s a bargain.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 23, 2023 13:02:56 GMT -6
We have 5 racks in our weight room. For each rack, we have one of those swiveling magnetic tablet holders. We also have a GymAware Flex device and mat for each rack. The kids set the equipment up at the start of class. All the iPads have the same login. Then, they open the GymAware app and select whichever movement we are doing. They get their sets, reps, and weights from a Google sheet I created that has formulas that automatically calculated the weight on the bar for each set. Works well for us. How do you use the tablets with all that chalk all over you? Chalk free weight room here. Our principal doesn’t let us use it.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 23, 2023 11:08:21 GMT -6
We had iPads mounted to racks so we didn't have phones in the room, and it was an actual class during the day, but I understand what you are saying, it's actually done the opposite for us, from paper to iPad, sped things up a lot and has made kids much more accountable, as I can check if people didn't finish a lift or workout. Can you please explain the logistics of how your setup works (iPads mounted at each rack)? how are the cards done? logins? etc. We have 5 racks in our weight room. For each rack, we have one of those swiveling magnetic tablet holders. We also have a GymAware Flex device and mat for each rack. The kids set the equipment up at the start of class. All the iPads have the same login. Then, they open the GymAware app and select whichever movement we are doing. They get their sets, reps, and weights from a Google sheet I created that has formulas that automatically calculated the weight on the bar for each set. Works well for us.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 23, 2023 11:03:28 GMT -6
A little off topic, but it’s only a matter of time before equipment companies start selling power racks with integrated tablets or tablet holders and that are wired for power. I can see that becoming increasingly prevalent in the next 5 years. Would not be surprised if someone has something like that out on the market now.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 17, 2023 8:26:46 GMT -6
Wow. What a sh1tshow! 😳 Someone is going to jail…😂
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Post by 19delta on Mar 16, 2023 16:44:26 GMT -6
Interesting. I always assumed that every JUCOs was a public school.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 5, 2023 13:00:32 GMT -6
Delta-to be honest whatever I want it to be. I’m sure there is something on paper somewhere. But I’ve never seen it or been shown it. In season we generally lift, film, chalk talk. Off season we generally just lift/run. Got it. It is simply extra time built into your school day to work on football stuff. Are all the football players in that class? Are there any non-football players in that class? I don't think there are any public school districts in Illinois that have something like that. I'm sure it's a huge advantage!
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Post by 19delta on Mar 5, 2023 8:42:17 GMT -6
I know of a coach who got a HFC gig by selling his “4 Ds” program. Each D stood for a word that I have long since forgotten but they were probably words like Discipline, Devotion, etc, etc. It sounded great. The problem was, the “program” was nothing more than a 1 page Google doc that got printed out, posted in the weight room, and then promptly ignored by all the players. He was one of those guys who viewed himself as a “builder of men” but it was largely all in his mind. At the end of the day, it’s ok to just be a football coach. Have you seen the “wefense” guy on Twitter? Some of that $hit gets out of hand. Ugh.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 5, 2023 8:39:37 GMT -6
In Illinois, head football coaches are most likely going to be PE, Social Studies, or Driver Ed teachers. But that isn’t a hard and fast rule. And assistant coaches will often represent the entire spectrum of the teaching staff. In the states where high school football is a huge priority, what classes are being taught by the football coaches? TX: no classes because they are AD also. Other good places: Same as what you said but with reduced course load. Part of the teaching day will be in football weights. Ok. I always wondered that about Texas. So HFCs in Texas don’t teach any classes at all? They are always an administrator? Or does that differ among districts? What about basketball, baseball, and other sports? Are those HCs also admins or do they teach?
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Post by 19delta on Mar 5, 2023 8:37:08 GMT -6
I am a HC in NC. I teach PE. Alot (not all) head coaches around here are PE teachers, and most of those teach wt. lifting. My schedule looks like this Fall 1. Fresh. Health and PE (freshmen football players only) 2. Prep Period 3. Prep Period 4. Football Class Spring 1. Football Class 2. PE 2 3. Prep Period 4. Fresh Health and PE I’m assuming you must be on block schedule? What is the curriculum for “football class”?
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Post by 19delta on Mar 4, 2023 20:20:11 GMT -6
In Illinois, head football coaches are most likely going to be PE, Social Studies, or Driver Ed teachers. But that isn’t a hard and fast rule. And assistant coaches will often represent the entire spectrum of the teaching staff.
In the states where high school football is a huge priority, what classes are being taught by the football coaches?
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Post by 19delta on Mar 4, 2023 20:11:18 GMT -6
I’m not sure if this qualifies as a pet peeve, but coaches who have a “brand” or a “theme” for their team always elicits a reflexive eye roll. Especially when the programs are not particularly good or the branding is clearly window dressing that is not followed through with. My thought always is that if guys like this would spend as much energy into coaching up scheme and getting the right players in position instead of thinking up trendy acronyms, they would probably win more games. #allgasnobreaks I know of a coach who got a HFC gig by selling his “4 Ds” program. Each D stood for a word that I have long since forgotten but they were probably words like Discipline, Devotion, etc, etc. It sounded great. The problem was, the “program” was nothing more than a 1 page Google doc that got printed out, posted in the weight room, and then promptly ignored by all the players. He was one of those guys who viewed himself as a “builder of men” but it was largely all in his mind. At the end of the day, it’s ok to just be a football coach.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 4, 2023 16:45:54 GMT -6
I’m not sure if this qualifies as a pet peeve, but coaches who have a “brand” or a “theme” for their team always elicits a reflexive eye roll. Especially when the programs are not particularly good or the branding is clearly window dressing that is not followed through with.
My thought always is that if guys like this would spend as much energy into coaching up scheme and getting the right players in position instead of thinking up trendy acronyms, they would probably win more games.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 2, 2023 2:43:57 GMT -6
2018 Illinois Class 2A semifinals. Gibson City, Melvin, Sibley (GCMS) @ Eastland Pearl City (EPC). Second smallest of the 8 classes in Illinois. Usually in small school Illinois football, the really good teams have 2-3 really good players and then everyone else is solid to above average. But GCMS had 11 dudes…there was not one guy out there whom you said to yourself, “We can take advantage of that guy”. EPC was very good, too. No bad players, either. But GCMS was really special. They won the game 14-6 or something like that and went on to win the state title the following week. That program did not lose a football game in consecutive seasons (2017-2018) and went 56-6 with 2 state titles from 2015-2019. I’ve never seen anything like that in small school football. I was not coaching in that game. Just a spectator. They had 2 or 3 D1 athletes on that team didn't they? 2 UofI guys and a basketball player I think. We played that McNutt group when they were freshmen in a JV game. We were undefeated JV wise and they beat us by a couple scores. I thought we'd played terrible to have lost to a bunch of freshmen and was kind of irritated.I talked to their HC after the game and he told me they hadn't lost in JFL ever. Yes. I think that is correct. I don’t know if any of them every panned out, though. What impressed me the most about them was how big and strong they were. It was visually evident that they spent a lot of time in the weight room doing the right things. They could have easily passed for a decent D3 team just getting off the bus.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 1, 2023 21:39:00 GMT -6
This one has probably already been mentioned in this thread, but coaches who in coaching clinics/podcasts/Zoom chats that refer to their team's specific names for positions, especially when they are "snazzy"/"cool"/"intimidating. I was listening to a podcast today, and while the material was good, the coach kept referring to a position name in their systen that is an animal name. That drives me insane. When you are coaching your team, call it whatever you want, star, magic, joker, shark, jack, alpha, tiger, whatever. But when you are in a coaching setting talking to other coaches, please for the love of all that is holy refer to them by generic names, like CB, safety, overhang, edge, outside backer, end, etc. One, it sounds goofy, and two, it sometimes impedes ability to understand. Speaking of clinics something that annoys me is when the speaker draws the play upside-down. If we're talking about defense then the defense should be on the bottom. That way when you talk about your left LB he's actually on the left. Ha! You beat me to it! 😂
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Post by 19delta on Mar 1, 2023 21:38:17 GMT -6
Speaking of scout cards…
I hated using them with the scout team defense when the offensive coaches would draw the cards from the offense’s perspective (with the offensive players drawn on the bottom of the page moving towards the top of the page).
The problem was, when I would hold the cards up to the defense, the kids would have to mentally invert the image and the number of scout team defensive players who could do that was zero. 😂
What I started doing was to get the scout team cards from the OC before practice and then re-draw them from the defense’s perspective. That improved our efficiency tremendously.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 1, 2023 21:18:14 GMT -6
2018 Illinois Class 2A semifinals. Gibson City, Melvin, Sibley (GCMS) @ Eastland Pearl City (EPC).
Second smallest of the 8 classes in Illinois. Usually in small school Illinois football, the really good teams have 2-3 really good players and then everyone else is solid to above average. But GCMS had 11 dudes…there was not one guy out there whom you said to yourself, “We can take advantage of that guy”.
EPC was very good, too. No bad players, either. But GCMS was really special. They won the game 14-6 or something like that and went on to win the state title the following week. That program did not lose a football game in consecutive seasons (2017-2018) and went 56-6 with 2 state titles from 2015-2019.
I’ve never seen anything like that in small school football.
I was not coaching in that game. Just a spectator.
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Post by 19delta on Mar 1, 2023 21:05:36 GMT -6
The 6-2 Stack Monster that Ampipe ran against Walnut Heights in 1983. Sorry I could not resist.
Too bad Coach Fox screwed that game up for them.
Nickerson. 😉
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Post by 19delta on Mar 1, 2023 16:06:13 GMT -6
I was OC for a guy who would "randomly" take over the offense in the red zone and put his kid in so he could dial up TDs for him. It wouldn't even have been that miserable (chitty for sure), but he killed most of our drives doing that stuff. Yeah. That’s a bad deal. I worked for a guy like that once. His kid was not a good player but the head coach would design a defensive specifically for his kid. When his kid was a sophomore, he was our starting center on the JV team. Didn’t even play defense on the JV but his dad drew up a varsity defense that had him playing MLB I felt bad for the coach and the kid they didn’t have a great relationship and dad was trying to use his position as head football coach to try and make the relationship with his son better. It never cost us any games or anything like that but it was always really awkward.
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Post by 19delta on Feb 27, 2023 17:52:58 GMT -6
Story 1: Head coach decided that it would be "funny" and he that would relate to the kids by coming out to practice in a wave cap and immediately ask an injured player to take his picture with two African American players... We all just looked at each other and shook our heads Coach Michael Scott from the Scranton Knights???
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Post by 19delta on Feb 25, 2023 8:06:08 GMT -6
Two days later, we had the high school camp. The HC brought in a former high level college FBS LB to help out. I was teaching DBs how to play basic man-man coverage technique (five yards off, back pedal, key, break, etc...). The high level "helper" interrupted the drill because he also had a better way.
"Alright, you're gonna line up five yards deep and one yard inside of the WR. You need to find your run fit key, that's important here. Gotta have the run fit key... Don't backpedal at the snap, read your run key. If it's run, you're gonna come down hill and play the run. If it's pass, then you're going to get your eyes on the WR and match his route. Here, I'll show you what it looks like on air."
He bounces around like an an ADHD five year old who hasn't had his Ritalin, babbling the entire time. "I read run, BAM!, I redirect and make the play!". "I read pass, I look at the WR, he's running an out, BAM!, I chase the out. It's easy..."
I didn't interrupt him, given that the HC had brought him over to the drill to "help". He tried to set up a drill to replicate the skill and it was a disaster.
HC: "I want us teaching that technique this year." Me: "Coach... We can barely backpedal and read a WR's break. Much less make a run/pass read and then play man." HC: "Well, we don't have to backpedal now."
I bet that technique is stellar against play action game when your man defenders are bamming to the LOS on that run read and their receiver is streaking wide open, waving to his ugly girlfriend, waiting for the band to play and cheerleaders to start doing push-ups. Here's the thing... The "technique" that the high-level college FBS LB was teaching those kids worked great for him because he was an elite athlete. For guys like that, technique doesn't matter because it isn't needed. The purpose of teaching players sound technique is that it provides an advantage for players of similar ability. Among players who have a similar ability level, the players with the most sound technique will be the best players. That is not true for freaks. They can simply out-athlete an opposing player who, regardless of that player's mastery of technique, is not as good of an athlete. That's why, generally speaking, the guys I have coached with who were elite, high-level players have often been lackluster coaches. Because they were great athletes, football was easy for them. So, once they became a coach, they would often be frustrated because they couldn't get kids to do things the way they did when they were a player.
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Post by 19delta on Feb 23, 2023 11:41:54 GMT -6
That year was soul destroying. The school day was over at 2:35 but we didn’t start practice until 3:30pm because that’s when the HFC was able to get there. I would just stare at the clock in my classroom like a prisoner on death row waiting for the hour of his execution. The big difference was, unlike the permanence of an execution, my torment was repeated each day until football season ended. 😂 There is NOTHING worse than working for a grinder who loses. Yep. The thing is, he wasn’t a bad guy. Probably a great next door neighbor. The problem was that football was way more important to him than it was to everyone else. He used to get upset with me because when practice was finally (mercifully) over, I would head immediately to my car and go home. Him? He wanted to stand out on the practice field and talk about the 3 and a half hour practice we just had for the next 45 minutes. Again…not a bad guy. But totally lacking in self awareness.
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