It's the final countdown!!

April vacation is winding down, with only hours left to it. This brings us into the final stretch of the Central Catholic school year, a stretch of only 5 actual weeks of class and a week of finals. In the joyous realization that I only have a month left of this job I've complained about for months, here is the final countdown of what I have left.

APPROX 15 TEACHING DAYS:
There are 25 weekdays between now and the beginning of June, however only a maximum of 17 of them will be spent teaching. There are numerous reasons for this. The first is that two of those days there is no school. Central Catholic does not hold classes the day of graduation nor does it hold classes on Memorial Day (as it shouldn't). Thus far, two more days are planned for a test and quiz on acids and bases, the current chapter. On those days, I am just administering assessments so there is no actual teaching going on. The final week of classes is planned for review for the final. Review has very little to it, mainly running through examples and answering questions. There is a maximum of that many days on because there will still be assessments for the next chapter in chemical kinetics and the president of the school does owe one more day off from things in the beginning of the school year.

PROGRESS REPORTS:
The 4th term progress reports are due this Friday by 8 am. This only requires me to grade three more classes of labs and their quiz on Wednesday.

3 LAB PERIODS:
Upon the suggestion of my department chair, titration has been taken out of the curriculum for acids and bases. This means that this lab is not going to be done with the kids. Thus, this coming week is what is referred to as lab "limbo." The next week of labs were planned as demonstrations and the last full week is lab check out. To assure I get the entire next chapter in, I cannot have any more lab periods, thus the dangerous part of my job has ended.

2 RELIGIOUS SERVICES (on the same day):
As an atheist, this year has been very interesting when it comes to the religious services that I have witnessed. There are only two more that I must be at. The first is the final school liturgy. Liturgy appears very cult like where all the students gather in the gym and do the prayer and other catholic services. The other is the baccalaureate mass for graduation. Unfortunately this takes away from my personal time as it occurs at 7pm at night, after a full day of school. Although, after looking through everything for the next five weeks and preemptively planning the remainder of the year I may be able to use one more sick day (I have 2 left) and it may be on that day

176 LABS TO GRADE:
The hardest part of this job has been the mass amount of labs that have had to be graded. With three more classes for one lab, and all 110 students for this last one, this leaves me with 176 more labs to grade give or take a few that people still have to make up.

2 QUIZZES AND 2 TESTS:
After planning the next 5 weeks of classes I only have 440 more assessments to grade in the forms of tests and quizzes. There is a test and quiz for each chapter remaining, acids and bases and thermochemistry.

3 DAYS OF FINALS:
The way finals are done at Central is that there are 2 finals per day of the 6 periods the students have. That makes three days of finals. As a teacher I get one of those 6 periods off, one is a department meeting, one is a coverage for teachers that are proctoring finals, and three I have to proctor myself. My final will be done and graded by the end of the day that it is administered and my grades sent in immediately.

The countdown begins tomorrow...