Maybe, this time

I've been sick all weekend. :p
Kleenexes are amazing. And even though I've been sick all weekend, I've still had a really good weekend. :]

Okay so I'm going to go ahead and start you off with the basics. RCHS has a new principal this year (Mr.Dill) and in my opinion, he's done a lot to help our school. Also, he hates band...okay hate is kind of a strong word but once I explain this I think you'll understand.

Our school this yeah has been doing a lot of this to improve academically. For instance, we're in the process of upgrading our curriculum and all grades took tests at the beginning of the year to help with the ACTs. Also, there is Freshman academy, which has been in affect since last year. I was in freshman academy, and have yet to find the purpose for it. but that's besides my point.

This problem that I'm talking about really starts with the "No Child Left Behind Act". Through this our school has been required to set a goal for the percent they're going to graduate each year. Okay so this is a good cause but the way they've gone about trying to solve it, in my opinion, is completely stupid. Sorry if I'm offending anyone. Anyway, the graduation percentage, well the school failed to meet requirements by 0.2%. POINT TWO PERCENT. Okay our goal was around 80 something percent. If we miss our requirement for another year the school goes on some list which means the government can come in and fire all of the staff and rehire an all new staff. (although I wish they would just go ahead and do that now)

So Mr.Dill decides to take action. We have this new "retake" policy. Students who make below a 75 on a test can has the opportunity to retake the test. The teachers have to get the students to fill our all the dumb forms that say whether or not they're going to retake the test. THEN they have to fill out a bunch of forms themselves, get another test and take all the forms to the office and the office send them to Mr. Dill. They they have to go get the forms back after Mr.Dill has looked at them or whatever he does. Then the student has to retake the test before the following Wednesday of when the test was handed out. They have about 3 opportunities to do this, Tuesdays during study session, Thursdays after study sessions, or after school, which some teachers aren't staying for. Then after the test has been retaken the teacher has to grade it. The highest grad that the policy allows the student to make is a 75. Thus making the whole policy practically pointless. Then the teacher has to average all the grades of that particular student with the new test grade.

So to sum it all up our school's new policy is a pointless inconvenience for everybody, teachers, students, and staff, and encourages passing with a D. Therefore making a high school diploma way less significant. Not to mention how much this takes away from the students, like me, who actually try and whose grades matter at least a little bit to them. Since the teachers have to take so much time out of their schedule to do this, many of them are no longer trying as hard to teach because they're so busy with this stupid new policy. A lot of them are making classes way easier and now making zeros gets you detention. Which is really annoying to me because I can afford a zero in a lot of my classes because I put effort into most of my work. But now I have to do every assignment even if I do a really bad job on it. Which I guess is good in a way, but it's also very unfair to me.

All this because some one had the idea of having 100% of students graduate high school (which is mathematically impossible). So this begs the question, Why can students do what they want. This is a problem that is impossible to solve so why can we come to school and make the grades that we want?

Oh.
Sorry for all of the complaining.
I hope everyone has a good weekend!