Monday, June 13, 2005

A little miffed

I am sitting here at school early trying to solve a problem.

I scheduled these independent lesson presentations the students are doing right now back in mid-May. They go up until June 21, the day before the last day of school. I am keeping them engaged and learning up until the end, right?

Late last week, I got this email telling me they are planning a freshman breakfast in the gym with awards and signing and stuff...for the 21st. They are taking the first half of the day and probably will then shorten the class periods for the rest of the day.

My problem is: what do I do with the students scheduled on the 21st? Their presentations are supposed to be 40 minutes long. If the breakfast replaces first period, those two students won't go at all. So how do I make it fair? Do those students just not present? Do they just turn in a piece of written work, a lesson plan, to show what they would have done? How is this in any way fair to the other students?

The real reason I am miffed is that no one ever told me to not schedule anything on the 21st. How dare they say on June 10th, "Hey, we want to completely take over the day, no matter what you had planned." Aren't I, as the conscientious teacher that I am, supposed to be planning for every day, and in advance? So I get penalized for planning a month ahead of time?

I wouldn't be mad if they had only told me earlier not to schedule anything. I asked the lady in charge and she said they had been trying to get this together for a while. But if they frickin knew something was going on, just say don't plan! I don't know what to do now. Those students have to do something...they aren't getting a free pass.

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