It’s interesting for me to see the reactions of my different students to the news that the school is closing in two months. I had a few, including some new students who had just joined, who quit immediately. Others seem to be staying for a longer haul, but it’s hard to tell. I heard yesterday that an entire class, my youngest, quit en masse to migrate to another, non-closing school. This meant not only that I work an hour less each week, but that another teacher (whose job it was to play the piano for the youngsters) is suddenly out of a job two months early. I understand why students wouldn’t necessarily want to stay in a closing school, but it still pangs when someone just vanishes forever with no notice.
It’ll be interesting to see who sticks it out until the final week, and what my schedule will be like then. I’m already down to four students on Wednesdays in two hours of classes, and three on Fridays in ninety minutes. I think my adult students will all stay until the end, if only because I’ve made friends with all of them. As for the children, I really don’t know who’ll drop out, but I’d be surprised if I kept the entire current roster until the end.
The shutdown notice caused some policies which I disagree with. The decision came right as five classes were transitioning from the end of one textbook into a new text. Three of those classes made the transition normally, but the last two hadn’t needed to be issued a new book before the decision to end the business was made, and as a result I’m supposed to float them along on copied pages until either they quit or the business ends. It could be that the toner and paper for 20 sheets of A3 will indeed cost less than a new textbook for them, but I still feel bad for those students who get grimy black and white instead of new, glossy, color books.
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