One week and counting...

I feel so official...I got my class rosters and schedule yesterday. Yet again, I have a seventh-period study hall to proctor. Seventh-period study hall and I don't have a good relationship.

The first year I taught, I had a seventh-period study hall first term. At the time, there was no cap on the number of students that could be assigned to a given study hall period. I was new to this gig, so I didn't know that it was abnormal to have more than twenty students in a study hall. Twenty-five students is about the limit that the classroom will hold.

I walked into a room with sixty-two students.

The registrar altered some schedules so I ended up with only forty-four in the room. Of course, the forty-four included almost all of the sophomore football players, who begged and pleaded and whined to be let out of class early on Fridays so they could beat the traffic out of the parking lot to go eat their pre-game meal.

There was great rejoicing when that term ended!

This year, I've got twenty in the study hall. Study halls are now capped at twenty-five, and I have the dubious distinction of having the largest study hall in school history!

I'm pretty happy with the schedule overall. More than half of the students I taught in the one freshman English class I had my first year are now back for Round II, and since they were a fabulous group, I'm looking forward to seeing them again.

Off to school to create a bulletin board...for the first time EVER, I'll be in the same classroom for all four of my classes! Seniority rocks!