The Day Before the End of the Grading Period

Every teacher has a story. Or two. Or ten thousand.

Today, I discovered that my 31st student would be meeting me for the first time tomorrow. I found out when I logged into my grade book online and saw that red number, the sign that something has changed. I quickly requested an additional desk from the office (which was delivered during 4th, so way to go custodial staff! I expected to have to wait a few days) and shot out an email requesting this kiddo's grades. For fun, I composed a little poem to commemorate the moment.

It turns out that this new kid is friends with a student in my 4th period class. That student inferred what was happening when the desk was brought it and guessed the student's name which prompted him to tell me that the new student comes from a different high school.

The email was already sent, however, and my poem (below) was distributed amongst the other English teachers. Perhaps, if you read it, you'll begin to understand why teachers get flustered as the grading period closes or students transfer from one class/school to another.

Here it is for your own review.

The Day Before the End of the Grading Period
by Mrs. V

'Twas the day before the end of the grading period
and all through the school,
the children were slacking;
they thought it was cool.

The grades were all posted
on each teacher's door
in hopes that "What am I missing"
would be spoken no more.

I was keeping calm
as I entered late grades.
I opened the grade book
and stood - amazed.

For what to my bespeckled
eyes should appear
but a brand new student.
Oh, my. Oh, dear.

This is important;
this is my plea:
I really need his grades.
Will you please help me?


Maybe you don't love it but that's okay. Here's something you might find useful, however. If you find it necessary to move your child from one school to another, you might want to check their end of grading cycle dates at both schools. It's not as big of a deal at the first school as it is at the second. The second school has to wait on the grades to go through the central office and that can take some time. Often your kid will get an Incomplete because we do not have enough information to go on. That can be difficult to change later. By the time you find out what your child's grade was the previous grading cycle, the new cycle has come out and your student could be failing for the semester, risking the loss of credit. If your teacher had known, more attention could have been paid to your kiddo. If you had known, you would have been on him/her like make-up on a circus clown. Just a little something to keep in mind.

Why I am a teacher

 This evening, I posted a moment from my day at work. I told my students that I'm not a teacher to fail students, believe it or not. Naturally, they asked me why. When I told them, a kiddo said, "that's the best reason I've ever heard."

It got a bunch of Facebook likes. It also sparked a friend (who recently became a teacher herself) to ask me why I became a teacher. The answer is too long for a Facebook post. It was too long to give in full in class. If you work with me, I PROMISE that I gave a synopsis and not the whole story.

You, like my student, may think this is the best reason ever. You may not. That's fine. My reason is my reason and, like it or not, it's good enough for me. So without further adieu, I give you my reason.

When I graduated from college, I got a job at a temporary agency as a liaison between the temp agency and the company that was temporarily employing workers from the agency. I worked for the temporary agency itself but on-site with the client (Caremark).

While my responsibilities included mundane things such as checking people in on their first day and taking attendance and fun things like celebrating birthdays and running contests based on attendance, I also had the responsibility to let people know when they were on a warning or when they were being let go. I'm pretty sure they asked me to fire people because they (the agency) knew it sucked and didn't want to do it themselves.

There came a day when I was informed that a worker hadn't passed her third test (actually, she'd failed all three - and you can't do that) during training and she was going to let go of her.

I don't know if I'll ever forget the look on the first woman's face when I told her. There is NO nice way to let someone know they're fired, by the way. There are nicer ways and mean ways, but none of them are really, truly nice.

She cried. She asked me how she was going to feed her three kids - her husband had just lost his job, too. It totally sucked. I did the only thing I could do: I shook my head and I cried with her.

Not long after, I was up on the call center floor, reviewing files and I noticed that a woman's attendance was shaky at best. I talked to her and found out that her baby girl was super sick. Born with heart problems, she was in the hospital, fighting for her life. The worker was trying to get hired on full time at Caremark so she'd have insurance. Unfortunately, she didn't get hired on in time. Her baby died, she and her husband had HUGE problems (they were living with his parents) and she got kicked out of the house, and to make matters worse, her attendance problems caused her to lose her job.

I felt completely helpless in both situations. It was their performance that caused the problems but I wanted to rescue them both from their situations.

I'm a teacher because of those women. I'm a teacher because I don't want that life for anybody and if I can get in there and make a difference in a kid's life and help them turn it around, that's what I want to do. I have come to the realization that I can't do it for them, but I can help them learn to help themselves.

That's why I'm a teacher.