I began writing this post a little after 2:00 pm on December 18th; the start of school being delayed because of the ice storm last night. The last exam was scheduled to begin at 8:00 am, but we all got a phone call the night before from the automated system that the exam would be delayed until 1:00 pm because of the storm.
The night before, my wife and I attended the Christmas party for school and had a very good time. The food was delicious; the company at our table interesting, and the drinks were free for the first hour. We left the festivities at about 8:00pm, expecting the bad weather to begin by then, but none of the ice and snow appeared until after midnight. The next morning, I was able to dig out from the storm before making the drive to school to give my last exam.
Of the 25 students 7th period 3 were missing. All three made up the exam the next week; the make-up exams being administered by the assistant principals on a schedule posted on the school web site. I only needed to leave a copy of the exam and grade it today, our first day back.
The students in my regular chemistry class did reasonably well on their semester exam. The boy in danger of failing got a B and so did the girl who looked asleep during the exam. She would have gotten a B+, but failed to write her test number on the answer sheet, a mistake that I deduct 5 points for.
It looks like I will lose one student from Honors Chemistry because of financial reasons. His family is unable to continue paying the tuition and he will be transferring this week
He was my lowest achieving student, failing 2nd quarter, and I would expect that it is difficult to justify spending family resources on such an unmotivated child. One honors chem. student was moved into a regular chem. class at my request. I wrote about this clown in a previous post. Besides being lazy, unmotivated, and disruptive, he is an ass. Another student, a very hard working young lady, had a change in her schedule and moved from 7th period to 6th period Honors Chemistry.
At the department chairman meeting yesterday the principal informed us that approximately 15 students left at semester for financial reasons. This is a typical number for us, and apparently is not related to the economic downturn we are all experiencing. We expect to see a decrease in enrollment over the next few years, which should turn around once the economy does. In my 30+ years here we have gone through these enrollment contractions several times because of the economy, each time rebounding to new enrollment highs when conditions changed.
Hopefully this time will be no different.
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