So Much for the Extra Sleep

Once again, politicians or whoever runs the school board (they're all the same) has made a stupid error by implementing a late-start for Staff Development Day instead of early-release.

Now, although I prefer early-release, I have no problem with sleeping an extra hour and fight the eye-bags that seem to be appear spontaneously during high school. Or at least it seemed like I could have slept an extra hour. But as it was, I had a zero period.

As you all may know by now, my zero period is Academic Decathlon. In fact, as of last week, we have lost our class. That's right. Due to recent budget cuts by hypocrites of the No Child Left Behind Act, Academic Decathlon has been reduced to club status. And the some itchy string-puller couldn't wait until the end of the year to kick us out of our room, so now we have to go to the library. We don't even see our teacher anymore!

But that's a problem that's not part of the problem. The problem is, if you're in zero period, you still have to report to school at the same time on late-start days! That's just stupid. Maybe I'd understand if they said we still had to come one hour later, but no, we have to report to school at 7:00. As zero period lasts an hour, our class ends at eight. But thanks to late-start, school starts at nine. A little trigonometry would show that we have one hour between the time when AcaDeca ends and school starts. Guess what? During that time, we have to stay at school. And apparently they do notice if you're absent.

Yesterday, that was the fateful late-start day that I started late on. When I got back from home and checked the answering machine, I got a the monotonous slightly female voice that was the telltale sound of an ELD computer telling me that my son was not present during zero period that day and needs to bring a signed note blah blah blah to the attendance office the next day, which brings to me to another point:

Who will take attendance for the attendance staff? When I got to school this morning, at the usual 7:00 in the morning, the windows were closed. They said it would be open at 7:30. When I returned at 7:30, the windows were still closed. And so I had to wait for ten minutes in the rather chilly and moist weather waiting for them. How are we supposed to be good students and be on time if they aren't good role models?

How stupid is that! Very.