I'm working on my report cards for the third quarter and the upcoming parent-teacher conferences, which are next week. I'm not really wild about report cards. If I never had to fill out another report card, I'd be a happy teacher. They're just a necessary evil, I guess. If I could just teach, I mean really teach, and not have to evaluate my students, that would be bliss. Sadly, this is not so.
I'm annoyed because parent-teacher conferences are next week, from the 20th to the 24th, but the end of the quarter isn't until the 30th. Somebody in the district office apparently doesn't know what a wonderful tool a calendar is. My principal was on the ball and e-mailed them back in September pointing out this little discrepancy, but said e-mail was ignored. Typical. And here I am, preparing report cards for the third quarter that really only reflect about seven weeks worth of teaching and learning, when it should be for a full nine weeks.
While it's an annoyance to me, it's a disservice to my students. I teach one major writing assignment each quarter: narrative, book report (response to literature), research paper, and persuasive essay. Well, the research papers are turned in, according to my schedule. But since I'm not working on my schedule, but on the district's, which is pushed up two weeks, there's no way I can grade all the research papers in time and include them on this report card, where they belong.
I hope they won't make this mistake again. But in the meantime, I feel perfectly justified grumbling about it here.
No comments:
Post a Comment