When I was hired back in June, I was under the impression that my school district was switching to Common Core and that I needed to teach by those standards. They even asked me in the interview if I knew about CC. This would be the first year for CC at this school. The state of MO was not to fully implement CC until 14-15 school year, but most schools are implementing it this year.
Since I know that many schools are implementing it, I did not hesitate or question my original thought of teaching straight CC. Even when I met with the outgoing math teacher, she gave me a little bit of resources and they were all geared toward CC. She even gave me a pacing guide for it. So with all the research I have done for lessons and things for CC, I was a getting prepared.
I was at a school meeting yesterday and I found out that all my research was geared toward the wrong thing. While there are still some things I can use to teach my lessons, I need to teach by a different set of standards. I need to teach by MO Grade Level Expectations AND Common Core. I will be teaching both in a crosswalk. I was told that the district will give me a pacing guide but I have yet to receive one and school starts in a little under 2 weeks.
To top it off, the state of MO is one of the few states who are putting their CC implementation on hold because of funding. In the meeting, I was informed that even though they thought the standard tests would be cheaper than the MAP tests they currently use, they will not be. MO doesn't know how they will fund them. There has been so much uproar about the CC standards in my local paper, but it was more opinionated rather than facts. The facts it did state, were nothing like what I heard recently.
This makes for a very stressed teacher because now I don't know what I should teach and when. I am still waiting on the pacing guide from the school. School starts in 10 days for me, the students will be there in 13 days. I need to work really fast because now since things have changed, I am no where near prepared for the start of the school year.
