A Long Friday

Yesterday started early for me, I was up at 4:30 in the morning so I could take some family to the airport.  When I got home I decided to look for an old West Point license plate border I knew was in my garage somewhere--I even knew the general vicinity!  When I couldn't find it, though, I decided to go up into the rafters to find it.  It wasn't there.  I just knew, though, that it was in that first area I'd looked, so I looked again--and there it was, hidden under something.  That mission being accomplished, and it not even being 7 am yet yet, I decided to go back to bed.

That was a bad idea, as I couldn't get to sleep.  Up again, I made breakfast and decided to go get my car smogged.  I'd recently purchased a LivingSocial coupon for a place near work, so I went there on my way to go get some stuff done in my classroom.  I couldn't believe it, but because my car is newer than 2000 it only took about 10 minutes to smog.  Seriously!  So off to school I went.

My principal was there, and he assures me that the concrete walkways around the office will be poured before school starts; if he's right, I'll be glad my prediction was wrong.  My room is unaffected by all the construction and the floor is nicely waxed, so I set up my computer and other electronics.  Why is that such a priority?  Because the day we get back to work, immediately after new staff is introduced to everyone, yours truly will be giving a presentation on how to set up our online grading system so that it calculates grades the way we teachers say we're calculating grades!  When what we say isn't consistent with the grades given, our grades aren't justifiable and are subject to be ordered changed by the school board.  Therefore, I'm going to give a lightly-technical talk on how the program calculates grades (given the inputs we teachers tell it) and then give two options/recommendations for how to calculate grading.  The computer does three methods, one being a hybrid of the other two, but since no one in his/her right mind would knowingly calculate a grade that way, I'll warn people away from it.  Hopefully this will help, as no one likes having grades challenged by parents.  At least if your grading method makes sense, and the computer is calculating grades the way you say you're going to calculate student grades, then your grades are defensible and will withstand parental challenge.

Stupid grading policies, though, well, I can't help with that!

After leaving school the rest of the day was enjoyable, including a scooter ride to a Mongolian BBQ restaurant for dinner.  A late-night walk to listen to an audiobook ended the day around midnight.