midterms

Oh, the wonders of a 3 day weekend. I hope everyone had nice holiday, even if you did have to work yesterday. I know I did.

With the exception of Brittany's new haircut being the talk of the junior high halls today, nothing really happened. I had a awful headache all day but did my best to make the day a positive one. We're just 6 pages away from finishing Night...yahoo!! I'm going to allow them to use "notes" on their Night test--anything they can fit on one side of and 8x11 piece of paper will be allowed on their desk during the test.

3rd Quarter mid-terms are this Friday. I will need to post mid-term grades after school on Friday. I decided to try something new this time around: I spent the time after school printing out individual student progress reports for all students with a D or lower and attached a note for parents explaining the prinout and pleading with them to help their student raise their grade. I will give these letters to the students tomorrow, and as incentive for them to actually show them to their parents, I am offering 20 points to the students who bring them back with a parent signature. I don't know how well this will work, but it never hurts to try, I suppose.

I had a concerned parent in my room right after the bell rang today...thankfully not upset at me for "giving" her student an F (3%), but wanting to see what could be done to raise his grade. She was confused on the whole participation aspect of my grading (certain assignments done in class are given for participation only and cannot be made up) and so I gave her the long list of extra credit options that I'm allowing for the quarter. After about a 10 minute meeting with her and her son, after telling him what he needs to be doing, they left and thankfully took the cigarette smoke with them. I've been lucky not to have crazy, upset parents come to my room so far!!

That's about all for now. Perhaps tomorrow will be a tad more interesting!