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Communication

Or Lack Thereof.

Report cards are due sometime. I'd tell you when, but I don't know. To quote Lindsay, this is a "no brainer. It should have been on the calendar from the beginning. Duh." I agree. But it wasn't, so we just have to sort of guess that it's been a long time since report cards, so they must be due soonish.

The administrators decided to be "nice" and give us an hour to work on them today so we wouldn't complain about them being due. We still don't know when they're due. This free hour was created from sending the kids home an hour early, just for today. So, on Friday at 2:30 they passed out notes saying that dismissal was at 2:00 one day only, this Monday, Feb 26. The flaw in this plan was that any child who was absent on Friday or whose teacher didn't check their mailbox at 2:30 pm didn't get the note.

Now, getting the note the Friday before would be bad enough. Parents work, have commitments, arrange for others to pick up their children, etc. Now they have to scramble to adjust everything by an hour. However, when they didn't even know their child was getting out an hour early, things become chaotic. Many of the students had to call their parents, and the administrators had the nerve to tell them not to come to the office to call because the parents "should have known." They had to come back and use my cell phone until the battery died, at which point I wrote a note saying that since this child was not here on Friday, she had no way of telling her mom - or knowing herself - that there was early dismissal.

We found out what the purpose of this hour was after it was over. On Friday, the notes said that the kids would be let out early for a teacher workshop. At 2:00 today, on Monday, I was wondering where the teacher workshop was. I didn't have time to wonder too much though, because half of my class was still in my class trying to figure out where to go, what to do, and how to get their parents to come get them. When I finally got them all out of my class - at the normal dismissal time - I went to my mailbox and found a memo saying that this hour was for working on report cards. Wish I had known before instead of after.

Ridiculous.

As I type this, (I'm on my own time now, not the school's time), there is an announcement over the loudspeaker saying that there is a very important memo about report card dates in the office. They're probably due tomorrow. They were probably due yesterday. Oh well! They'll get them when they get them.

Addendum: Report cards are due Wednesday. Fat chance!

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