Professional Responsibility Test

Question #1: What important after-school duty should teachers always show up for?
Answer: Bus Duty

Question #2: How many days this week did Mrs. Chandler show up for her assigned bus duty? (10 points per day)
Answer: none

How pathetic. I even put up a sign on my door to remind me to go to bus duty, and I still didn't make it.
Three different factors joined forces to prevent me from fulfilling my assigned bus duty:

1) There are only two teachers in our pod, and, in what must have been a drunken stupor, those responsible for the bus duty schedule assigned both of us to bus duty in the same week. In fact, every week during this school year that one of us has bus duty, the other one does as well. The problem is that we also have pod duty for 90 students every day after school. So when one of us goes to bus duty, the other has to stay on pod duty. Since my teaching partner is usually ready before I am, she went to bus duty and I stayed to supervise the pod.

2) There is only one week left before the end of the quarter (and report cards), so students have been flooding me with requests to check their grades or give them extra copies of missing assignments. And they all show up after school. So I’m usually delayed in getting out of the classroom after school.

3) My last class is BAD. (I’m sorry to the girls from my last class who read my blog, but you know that it’s true.) They are chattier than caffeinated sophomore girls prepping for Homecoming. They waste SO much time talking, and I usually end up fining them by holding them after class in 30-second increments. They average one to two minutes after class every day. In their defense, there are 34 of them, and it’s their last class of the day. Also, they’re 12- and 13-year-olds. They’re really smart kids, and very sweet... they just can’t be quiet.

Anyway, by the time I actually dismiss my last class, the rest of the school has already moved on. Then the students who want to talk about grades or missing work come in. Then my always-organized teaching partner beats me to bus duty, and I have to stay in the pod to make sure the kids at their lockers don’t burn down the building or anything. (Actually, it’s more like making sure they don’t beat each other up and rip the pod apart in the process.) So I failed bus duty this week...

Mrs. Chandler’s grade on the Professional Responsibility Test: F-