137/365 - Thorny issues

Note: I'm writing this on Sunday I actually took this on Wednesday but using last Tuesday as a post date to keep up with the 365. I'm cheating because I'm so far behind on this project.

The past two weeks at school have been insane. You can tell there was a full moon. ;) There was an article published in a local newspaper about two of my senior students and a controversial issue. This caused some issues with graduation and fears of behavior problems during the ceremony. Everything turned out fine, but it stirred up problems from earlier in the winter.

Regrettably, I lost my cool in one of my classes and told them (among other things), to "quit bitching and whining. We are still in school and have work to do." Well, someone snitched on me for the "b" word and I had to meet with the assistant principal, then later in the day the principal. I guess karma is real. The next morning in a different class, a student turned around a looked at another student's paper during a test. I made him turn his test in and he cussed at me, saying it was a "big load of shit" and he didn't do anything wrong. Back to the office I went.

Our students can be exempt from finals for great attendance, but only if they have an A or a B in a class. One little pet peeve of mine - The sudden concern for their grades. Kids that have barely completed work all semester, now want to know their grades daily and to know if they can have extra credit. Borderline c/b students want to argue about every test question to try to get one more point. I get annoyed by the seemingly constant barrage of "what's my grade?" (like I have each one memorized for all of my 120+ students)"When will that go in the grade book?" "I turned that in." (when clearly they didn't, and almost always find it in their bags, half way completed.) "Can I make up that assignment from two months ago?" "What grade will I have to get on the final to get ---?" "How many more assignments will we have" "Will they bring my grade up to a --?" GRRRR - Reminds me of that old phrase "A lack of preparation on your part does NOT constitute an emergency on my part."

Anyway, sorry for the griping. I'm soooooo happy we only have a week and a day left.