Author: jgalvinwhite

Hello and happy Tuesday!

I hope your week has started off on the right foot! Today, we don’t have school as we typically have election days off…but I don’t know that there are any primary elections today?

As the school year wraps up, I feel like my to do list is a mile long, and my brain is in overdrive, but that’s just how it is every year.

Today’s post is a Teacher Talk Tuesday post all about end of the school year things you might not know teachers deal with as the school year wraps up.

Ten things you might not know about end of the school year.

One. Testing!

Testing, testing and more testing. All of our 10th and 11th graders take the ACT the second Tuesday in March. The juniors’ scores are a part of our accountability, and the sophomores get a good (and free) practice run before their junior year.

We have KSA (Kentucky Summative Assessment) within the last two weeks of the school year. Again, it’s the sophomores and juniors that test. This year, we did two tests on Tuesday and two on Thursday last week. It was kind of nice to have a day in between of testing for a little break and to have a normal Wednesday schedule for the school.

Two. Schedules.

As the school year wraps up, we anxiously await hearing what our schedules will be for the next school year. Yep…high school teachers don’t necessarily teach the same thing from year to year.

Love that for us.

Some years we’ve gone into the summer not knowing what we will be teaching the next year. Last year, we found out right after spring break which was unprecedented! This year’s timeline was very fair and we found out last week what we will be teaching…but not necessarily the schedule with class periods and planning periods. I think we will know that soon.

This year, I teach English 1 (Adv. and co-teach). Next year, I will have the same, but with two English 2 classes. At the moment, I don’t know that I’m thrilled to have three preps, none of which are any kind of elective. Nothing is set in stone, so we’ll see how it shakes out.

Three. Classrooms.

Our classrooms can change year to year, but it’s not usually something that’s mandatory. More than likely, if a “better” room opens up, based on seniority, a teacher can request to move to a different room for the next year.

That being said, there have been times where admin has requested certain teachers move to be closer to their department or maybe a first year teacher is moved next to a veteran teacher.

If you do move rooms, it’s probably quicker and more efficient to move what you can yourself. Of course, custodians will move heavy things like filing cabinets, but anything that’s manageable, it’s best to do yourself (and/or with help, of course).

Before the end of the school year, we always have to label our desks, bookshelves, filing cabinets, etc with our room #, so that when things get moved out so the custodians can wax our classroom floors, everything *hopefully* gets put back where it belongs. We often even draw a “map” on our board where certain tables and bookshelves should go.

Four. Purging and freebies.

Teachers love to give things away. At the end of the year, there’s usually a good pile in the workrooms with “free to a good home” note stuck on whatever…anything from bookshelves to books to lamps and more.

I try to throw away/recycle/organize every day in May…thinking my future self will thank me later!

Five. Meetings.

We have after school trainings before testing, and our weekly PLC (professional learning community), department and faculty meetings continue every week after school.

That being said, for teacher appreciation week a couple of weeks ago, we received “the gift of time” with our weekly meeting canceled.

The day after the students’ last day, we have a faculty meeting and wrap up the school year.

Six. Planning for next year.

In late April/early May, we start receiving emails about professional development plans, dates to save, etc. for the next school year. Sometimes, this info is overwhelming as we’re just trying to wrap up this year and now we’re being told to think about the next year.

We have to do “safety trainings” every year, and they are typically due by Labor Day. These trainings can be started after our last teacher work day, and most of us knock those out in the summer. These trainings are over anything from blood borne pathogens to how to safely climb a ladder to school safety. I swear that they add more and more of these every year, and we probably watch 12-15 hours of trainings that don’t count as professional development…Just another part of our glamorous job!

Seven. Technology.

Students turn in their Chromebooks with three days left in the school year. That means that their final exam has to be on paper which is actually my preference anyway. I’m always happy when they turn in their Chromebooks and have one less distraction.

Eight. Final exams.

For the English 1 final, students are taking our unit test which is multiple choice, so that will be easy to grade which I appreciate as well.

At my school, final exams are worth 10% of the students’ overall grade.

Also, the last three days are a different kind of schedule as we see some classes for an hour and then two classes for two hours for them to complete their finals. It’s a weird schedule, and I wish we’d just do two days of three finals each and let students go home early. That would be way less hectic for sure!

Nine. Teacher work day/flex time.

The day after the students’ last day is always a teacher work day. We start with a faculty meeting that typically lasts a couple of hours. During the meeting, the admin talk about end of the year things and we always celebrate retirees. (Lucky them!) I do appreciate that we aren’t “just meeting just to meet” and when we are finished we get the rest of the time in our rooms. Typically, there’s an end of the year check list that we get a few signatures on like that we submitted grades, technology is accounted for and more.

I’m really grateful that my district does “flex time” because that means we don’t always have to make up all of our contract days. We account for our hours missed for snow days, for example, and submit a form with hours we worked outside of our contracted school day. Some years, we don’t have any hours, and this year, I had to submit a form documenting 30 hours. For example, if I didn’t turn in hours for today, I’d be at school without the students. This was an odd year where we did have four traditional snow days rather than NTI online days. So, those four days at 7.5 hours a day equals 30 hours we document. If I didn’t submit the form, my last day of school would be June 3 instead of May 29.

Ten. Graduation.

All of the high schools in my district graduate at Rupp Arena in downtown Lexington. While teachers have always been expected to attend, this is the first year that it’s required. I’m always surprised that it hasn’t been required in the past. This is also the first year that teachers will have the black graduation gowns with the hoods from our colleges. I always love graduation, but I do feel like the bigger schools rush through and it’s not as personal as graduation is in smaller schools.

Well, we’re officially down to five more days of school. I can’t believe I’m wrapping up my 23rd year in education, and the kids only have three more years left of high school! I’ll try not to think too much about that and enjoy my summer with them…the last summer with them relying on me to drive them where they need to be!