Senior Award Night was fun, as usual. Congratulations to Matt for winning Mathematics Student of the Year, as well as to Brian, Isaac, Miheer and Jessica for their Excellence in Mathematics. I am sure all of them will shine in college!

The worst of the busy week is over, and now I am into finishing 4th marking period grades and giving/grading final exams. This is a rather hectic time, although the worst will be Monday when I give my last senior exam from 10:00 pm - 12 noon and then must submit my positive senior failures at 1:00 pm Monday. It is incredibly foolish of the administration to expect an entire exam to be graded in less than 1 hour! Sure, I could only grade the few students in danger of failing (which are 3 in my case), but how is that fair grading the partial credit without doing all the exams one problem at a time, which is my usual method? And if the student’s grade is close, fairness can be very important. To make matters worse, the entire AP Statistics exam is non-multiple choice, extending the usual grading time. The administration claims they need to know senior failures immediately because the first graduation practice is that afternoon, but I see no reason why the failures cannot practice once before being pulled out of practice the next morning.

I believe that I will set a record of disgrace this year, since I currently have 8 students in serious danger of failing for the year, 6 of them in honors / ap classes. Usually 1 failure is a lot for me. I am definitely not happy about this.