Saturday, June 01, 2013

Cruising Into The End of the School Year

Our last day of school is this coming Wednesday (yes, it's weird, and no, I don't know why).  Today we had final exams for two periods, and we'll have 2 a day on Monday and Tuesday.

The deal is, though, that our seniors graduated 2 weeks ago.  We had to reserve Memorial Auditorium last September, when there was talk of cutting 3 weeks off the end of the school year unless a tax increase passed in November.  So we reserved Memorial Auditorium 3 weeks early, and when the tax increase passed, we were stuck with that graduation date.

I teach 2 classes that are 100% seniors, and one class that's all seniors except for 2 juniors.  Today I gave a final to one of my remaining classes, on Monday I have the 2 juniors (who have already taken their final exam with the seniors) and the other remaining class, and on Tuesday I have no students at all.

The teachers who don't have all-senior classes are complaining because we who do get some time off that they don't, but I'm not feeling bad about it since this schedule is a one-time-only deal anyway.  I've been observing other teachers and their teaching strategies, improving specific lessons, and getting all signed off on all the things we have to do to close out the school year.

OK, sometimes I work on the 3-D puzzle in the staff room, but mostly I'm accomplishing real work.

It's a nice, stress-free way to finish the school year.

3 comments:

Mike Thiac said...

I get to add to the stress.

I get a finale at the end of the school year. Our classes let out early Wednesday so our school zones won't be in effect after that morning. I got one more block of traffic OT left...

"Sign here, enjoy the summer! " :<)

Unknown said...

You are lucky - my school is in the same situation as yours (hah - we are probably in the same district!), and our admin forced "busy work" on all senior teachers for the last days so that the other teachers wouldn't be upset.
But I'll admit - it's been nice having the low-key end of the year.
(p.s. I just stumbled onto your blog today and put you right into my feed!)

maxutils said...

Just a thought ... doesn't letting 1/4 of the students out that early put you under the minimum for educational minutes required as per state law? Or was an exception made this year?