Tag: teacher

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Public School Report Cards Already!

School has been in session for 5 weeks already, which means that school report cards come out next week for all the public school kids in this area. We do 6 week grading periods, and the first reports are supposed to be parent teacher conferences. I’m not sure they still do that in every school, but I sure used to hate the 6th week of school when I was a kid. My parents would go to the school and sit on these tiny chairs and listen to the teacher bitch about me for 30 minutes, then they would come home and beat my butt for whatever holy sin I had been committing in class, like “not paying attention.”

Then the next 6 weeks would be hell, because I’d have lost all my privileges and was not allowed to watch TV or play outside with friends or do anything except homework or read library books. OMG! I hated my teacher AND my parents for those second 6 weeks.

But then, strangely, my next report card would always “show improvement”” and I would be not grounded any more and life would go back to normal. I don’t recall doing anything different during those 6 weeks except suffering – but I managed to get through it and my parents felt better about themselves for being “responsible parents” and my teacher would get panties out of a knot and accept the fact that not every student is going to be a perfect student.

 

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August 1 Means School Starts

Today is the first day of school for the kids in the Metro area. A lot of other counties are either starting this week, too, or one day next week. I think it is crazy to start school in August, but this has been a long term effort to change our public schools into a year round schedule.

By starting in August, the schools build in a week of “Fall Break” in October, a two week “Holiday Break” and then a one week “Spring Break.” So the kids don’t really go for a longer school year, they just get more breaks.

Since I don’t have kids, it doesn’t matter much to me. I find is strange to go back to school before Labor Day, as that traditionally meant the end of summer where I grew up. But in the South, the warm weather lasts a lot longer and they have redefined the breaks away from Christian holidays to be more suited to teacher’s needing a break and professional development seminars.

School back in session just means longer drive time in the mornings, as the school buses mess up traffic. I absolutely HATE getting stuck behind a school bus on my way to work. I end up leaving for work 20 minutes earlier when school is in session just so I don’t have to deal with school buses. Getting to work early means less sleep for me and not enough time after I get to work to do anything personal, so I end up making coffee for the whole office and reading the newspaper for 15 minutes every morning. Personally, I would rather get that extra sleep and skip the newspaper, but I’m not willing to risk being late due to traffic. So it is what it is.