Thursday, December 15, 2005
posted by Q6 at 4:57 PM
Anyone who works in a school knows that sometimes the bell schedules change: minimum days, final exams, stuff like that. All told, we've got seven. SEVEN. Seven bell schedules covering every possible need over the course of the year. Being someone who has the patience to do the math, I'm the "schedule guru" around here. Seems easy enough: a lot of time at the beginning of the year, and it's done.

Or so I thought. Then the new principal threw a curve ball at us.

Many schools have a "late start" day every couple of weeks for staff meetings, trainings, and the like. It means building extra minutes into the schedule so that they can be burned for the late starts about once a month. Our new principal wanted to do that. Now. So it was back to the drawing board for not one but THREE possibilities. One was finally selected (which starts the school day five minutes earlier each day), and seven new schedules, reflecting the change, had to be created. In the end, our 2005-06 school year will see fourteen different bell schedules, some used only on one day of the year. They've become old hat to me, but I have no idea how the parents and students keep track of them all. Thank God we ring bells.