First Week Almost Done

Large classes, nice kids, too much staff drama--mark this first week. Several of my SDAIE kids from two years ago in Geometry have me again in Trig and I was as excited to have them again as they were to be there. (I had requested them since they need a little extra nurturing.) One of my outstanding girls from that group is going to be a Peer Tutor in this year's SDAIE class :)
They opened a 7th trig class to reduce class sizes and yet students aren't being moved to level the load. It will be harder as the days go on because the students are settling in and bonding where they are. It isn't fair that because they have parent complaints about the other teacher that I should have classes of 36 and 37 vs 28 and 18, etc.
Had a young man crying today in trig and after he went outside to sit at a table, I joined him to talk while the class worked. Fortunately I had read what he'd written on his info form and I knew that he didn't have any parents. Evidently he lost his mom, his aunt, his grandfather, and I guess his dad all around the same time a couple of years ago. He was feeling overwhelmed and unable to work and felt that no one cared. (I talked with him for quite a while.) Finally I told him that I would be the person at Westmont who cared and that I wanted him to come to see me in the morning and any time that he felt he needed to talk to someone. We'll see how it goes.
A few humorous moments this week. In checking roll, I was missing one girl so I asked if anyone was Karina. One girl raised her hand. I said but your name is Seongyoung (similar)? She said " I am Korean". I was a little slow on the uptake but then realized that Karina and Korean do sound similar.
In my SDAIE class, I have a senior that had passed my class last year so I told him that he could take Algebra 2 or another class that he might need--and added that there was no need to suffer through another year with me. His reply "But I want to suffer...." :)