Friday, October 12, 2012

Small Class

I believe I've mentioned the buyout thing at the continuation high school, but just in case you missed it...

On Fridays, students can get permission to skip school if
  1. It was a full week (no Monday holiday)
  2. They were in school and on time all week
  3. Their teachers all give permission
This is what's so great about subbing on Thursday there. I get to sign the slips giving permission, and my condition is always for them to do their work. I state this up front, and I find that this is incentive enough to get them to do what they're supposed to do.  

On Thursday, every single student in first period (all six of them) gave me a buyout to sign. They all did their work. (The room was silent.) I signed every buyout. And I knew I was returning Friday (the teacher was out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday).  

Would I have anyone in first period?  

Turns out, I had one student. I asked the burning question. 

Another of his teachers wouldn't sign his buyout. Bummer.  

But I was glad he was there. I would have felt funny getting the period off. It feels wrong somehow to have no students in a class that I'm supposed to teach.  

3 comments:

  1. Man, I never had an option like that in school. I had to skip the old fashioned way. I mean... I never skipped school.

    When I was teaching, I had a few classes like that, when almost every kid was out for one reason or another. When I got down to one kid, we usually played Uno or something because there wasn't much point in me teaching a class that 90% of my students would miss because I'd just have to do it all over again the next day.

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  2. that's crazy! And like MJ I had to skip the old fashioned way, too. Luckily, I was pretty good at forging my mom's signature ;)

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  3. Hey, if they get to skip it's only fair if you get to as well. Too bad for both you and the kid :). I wish I had a system like that when I was in school.

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