On Saturday night, about 10 hours before we would start teaching on Sunday, we got an email from the teacher who was coordinating the assessments. She let us know that we would be giving the grammar portion of the assessment test first thing in the morning. She let us all know we would need to put the chairs in rows (or have students without chairs sit far enough apart not to cheat) and that we should give them an hour to finish the test. She would give us the tests and some acetate sheets to use for checking the answers when we arrived at school. Later in the week we would give the listening test if we could round up enough speakers. Since it was really important that we get these tests graded and entered, she wanted us all to stay an extra hour after school to finish grading the tests. She had asked the bus to pick us up later.
I was upset for a few reasons. One, this was not enough notice, how would I get in touch with the family I tutored to tell the driver not to pick me up until later? Two, who was she, just another teacher, to extend our work hours? I know she really wanted this done, but why did we have to stay late? Couldn't we use our admittedly short planning time to grade them? And even if we didn't finish in one day, we wouldn't do the listening test until later that week. We needed all the scores to make any adjustments to classes, so having one set of scores without all of them wouldn't really help. So actually, so long as they were all graded by the time we did the listening test, it would be fine.
My roommates and I discussed it at length. We were all pretty upset by it, and Princess said she wanted to do something about it. I suggested that we bring it up on the bus tomorrow and decide what to do as a group. At my old company, we often had bus meetings to discuss time changes in bus coming and going times, and other work issues. Princess said she had sent the woman and email, and also sent complaints to the vice principal and principal about it, but that it was a good idea to talk as a group. She said she didn't want to be the only one, and I told her not to worry, I would back her up.
It just so happened that on the bus the next morning, Princess was sitting next to Jude, and I was sitting right in front of both of them. I heard Princess bring up the testing to Jude, and since I didn't want Princess to feel abandoned, I turned around and started talking with her as well. I asked if she thought it was possible that we could finish grading the tests during our breaks and planning time. She said she guessed it would take about 1 minute per test to grade, and since most of us had around 40 students, that it would be possible if we used our 40 minute planning at the end of the day and our 15 minute break. Maybe some people depending on how fast they were would also need to use their lunch period, but she figured it was possible. I asked her about weather or not it was really necessary to have the scores finished today, since we still had the listening to do later that week anyway. She told me that as long as the scores were in by Tuesday, there shouldn't be a problem (this was Sunday). I asked her if we all agreed to have everything graded and turned into her by the end of the day on Monday if that would be ok? She said she didn't see why not.
So I put it to the whole group. Would you guys rather work hard today and tomorrow during your breaks to get this done, or do you want to stay after school today and finish it? It was unanimous, everyone wanted to go home today at the normal time, and agreed to have the tests scored and submitted by the end of the school day tomorrow. We told the driver to change the pick up back to the normal time, and headed off to give the test, which, it turns out, there were not enough copies of (big surprise). I was one of the first classes to get the test so luckily, I did not have to wait for copies to be made.
The test was fairly difficult. Most of the students finished early. It was multiple choice so I got the feeling most of them were just guessing. A lot of girls were finished before time was up, and I started grading those right away. A few girls were still working when time was up. I asked if the class if they thought it was hard or easy and a few said easy, some just shrugged, and the rest appeared to still be asleep. Turns out, no one got more than 60% right, so it was very hard. The grading was faster than I thought, particularly when I started marking only the ones they got right instead of the ones they got wrong. Usually there were only about 5 right per page. I managed to finish grading all the tests with about 20 minutes to spare at the end of the day. I felt pretty good about it and took them to the assessment lady who thanked me. She said only two of us had finished grading so far. I said I could help grade some more right now, since we still had some time before the end of the day, she said that would be great, except most of the teachers still had their tests. so she didn't have any extras at the moment to grade. I told her to let me know if she needed any help later.
So I went back to my room and got about halfway through a lesson plan and made my way back to sign out at the normal time. Almost everyone was already on the bus. I asked how many had finished grading. Only a few were done, but most had finished more than half of theirs. It looks like we would all make the deadline with no problem.
After work I went to tutor as usual, so I didn't get the chance to check my email until around 7:30 that night. When I did, I found the Principal had sent us all an email at 2:30pm (half an hour before the bus normally comes) saying that she approved us staying late today, and that in exchange, we could be paid overtime one hour or leave 40 minutes early on Thursday. Since there is still no email at the college, no one at the school had gotten this email until we were already home. I felt a little guilty now. It was one thing to change the time when one of the other teachers was one of the people requesting the change, but now that I knew it was "approved" by the principal, I figured we might be in trouble for changing the time back to our normal working hours. It was too late now though, the damage was done.
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