...or an anxiety attack. Either way, I'm going crazy over here!
The school finally posted the new daily rotation schedule for the 2008-2009 school year. Yay, right? Because now I have no real excuse not to plan? No! They've added a 4th lunch to our daily schedule! This is NOT good. There used to be 3 lunches (decided by building, thus your lunch rotated daily as well). If you were on "first lunch", you'd go to lunch for a half hour then to class for 60 mins. "Second lunch goes to class for 30 mins, lunch for 30 mins, then back to class for another 30 mins (great when you have a tough class). Finally, "third lunch" goes to class for 60 mins then to lunch for 30 mins. Reasonable, right? The addition of a 4th lunch complicates this.
According to the new schedule, "first" goes to lunch for 30 then class for 90!. "Second" goes to class for 30, lunch for 30, class for 60. "Third" goes to class for 60, lunch for 30, and class for 30. Finally, "fourth" goes to class for 90! then lunch for 30. Can you imagine kids getting to school at 7:45am and not getting to eat lunch until 12:15pm?!? They're gonna be STARVING! I might have to relax my "no food" policy if I somehow get stuck with this 4th lunch. I feel like I'm going to die already!
Did I mention the times the rest of the classes for the day? Prior to lunch, the first 3 classes are 57 minutes. After lunch, the 2 remaining classes are 45 mins each. This is seriously going to screw up planning and keeping two sections of a class on the same page. If one section of 4's meets before or after lunch and the other meets during lunch, it's like the earlier class has missed a half a day's lesson! That's going to add up majorly!
I'm so overwhelmed right now. I was feeling fine too and looking forward to going back. Now I'm just über-stressed. :-(
5 comments:
So, how does that work with 90 minutes? Surely 4th period isn't that long. Are you on a block schedule? I don't understand how 4 lunches would work. We have three and I am hoping for 3rd lunch since I have 2nd planning. However, we'll probably get 2nd since they always think it's "no big deal" to split language classes. (take attendance twice, deal with two transitions, etc...) It is always lots less stressful until reality hits. My mind is still boggled by 4 lunches. And no, there's not much chance of keeping the two sections together. You'll just have to do extra activities in the longer class to keep them back with the other one.
Wow. Longest class ever!!! My fingers are crossed that you get 4th period planning! ~Maybe?!?
I thought our schedule was wonky! What brilliant administrator thought of this idea? I already have a food policy in place for my 6th graders. They can eat in the morning as long as it's healthy. They cannot have juice or soda in my room in case they spill. They can have water. Anything they have in my classroom needs to be cleaned up. So far, I've not had any problems.
(Also, thanks for your kind words on my blog regarding my son.)
yeah, our crazy rotating schedule has me going crazy too. and about the lunch thing? our schedule on fridays has kids starting at 8:00 and not having lunch until 12:45. and yes, they were starving. :-P
@Rho: It rotates, so 1 day out of 7 my 4th block will be planning.
@Ms-Teacher: I have no idea who came up with this schedule. Clearly not a teacher.
@Lara: I saw the schedule for the first week of school. It seems I will be in the unlucky building which has 4th lunch, which means 90 mins of kids starving. Good times.
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