Because my son attends an elementary school that is still on a "year-round" (i.e., "evil beyond description") schedule, my family and I had to schedule our vacation this year to coincide with his time off track. That happens to be the last week in September, which is not only the week before midterm, but also test week. I swear that I did not do this on purpose! I had this vacation on the calendar in June, long before the testing and midterm dates were set, and I have no control over school scheduling. I will be gone for one week, during which time my substitute (between rounds of testing) will show the TV-movie version of The Odyssey, an epic poem we just finished reading in class. Students will complete a study guide and write an essay comparing the movie to the poem.

There are two ways of looking at this:

1) It's a bad week for a teacher to miss because he will not be there to administer two days' worth of tests and enter his midterm grades.

OR

2) It's a good week for a teacher to miss because all that is happening during the week is testing and an in-class movie (an educational movie, of course!).

I'm going to take the optimistic approach and choose #2, but I still see a couple possible complications that I hope this communication will iron out. Because I will probably not be able to enter midterm grades before I leave, my students will receive midterm grades that have a big blank space next to their English class. The reason for this is that the "window" to enter midterms is set by the district, and that "window" opens after I leave and closes before I get back; otherwise I would complete the midterms before leaving. A possible benefit of not having midterm grades for English is that lots of parents will want to come to parent-teacher conferences to meet the irresponsible drone of an English teacher who couldn't even get his grades in on time. Those meetings are usually more productive than a letter on a midterm report anyway. I hope to see lots of parents at conferences in October! (And I hope not all of them are mad at me.)

The other issue I wanted to address here is that of Accelerated Reader extra credit. Students in my classes can get extra credit for finishing all 30 of their AR points before midterm, which falls on September 30th, one of the days I am gone. Even though I will not be there on that day, students who have all of their AR points by then will still receive the extra credit. It just won't be figured in until after I return. The AR program allows me to check not only the scores on AR quizzes, but also the dates on which those scores were achieved. I can therefore run a reading report for September 30th even after that date, so have no fear Early Readers! You will still get your extra credit; it just won't be in your grade until a week after midterm. (It will, however, be figured in by the time those parent-teacher conferences roll around, so you can tell your parents to come and check out those excellent scores that were not reflected on the midterm report.)

Finally, a word about citizenship: BE GOOD TO MY SUBSTITUTE! The only way to endanger your citizenship so early in the year is to give her a hard time. I am often very laid back in my own approach to student "discipline," in that I insist students be responsible for their own behavior or suffer the natural consequences. But when it comes to mistreating a substitute, I am merciless. If I hear (from the substitute or any of the various spies that I will have checking up on you periodically throughout the week) that you were causing trouble for her, kiss your citizenship goodbye. There will be no opportunity for make-up. You will have to pay the fine and do your community service through the district in order to get it cleared. Not only that, you will forver ruin my otherwise good first impressions of you. To summarize: Treat the substitute with complete respect and obey her every command without question. If you do, I'll be extra nice when I get back.

See you next Monday!