What does a teacher do on a day with no students?

Today is a day for professional development and planning. It was orginally supposed to be a day for grading course assessments, but the district didn't have the course assessments ready to give, let alone grade. So instead we are professionally developing and planning. What does a teacher do on a day with no students?

1. Gets to school at 7:15 (required work time) instead of 6:30 (to make copies, update grades, clean up room, get ready for students).

2. Stops for a latte instead of drinking home brew, black.

3. Doesn't pick up student she's been giving a ride to school all year.

4. Attends 8:00 meeting with department and principal. Reviews unit planning and next steps to prepare new curriculum for next year so we don't have to do the canned curriculum that the district is shoving down our throats. Makes a "To Do" list while in the meeting.

5. Cleans room up. Makes a space on desk to sit and work. Picks up the floor and straightens the desks. Erases and cleans the chalkboards. Throws unclaimed old projects and assignments in the trash. Takes down old projects off the walls and hangs new ones.

6. Writes summer assignments for honors students. Gets feedback from colleagues.

7. Makes an appointment to take the car in to get it looked at tomorrow morning. Prints mapquest directions to the dealership.

8. Checks plans and e-mails.

9. Talks to neighbor about strategies for teaching students to annotate.

10. Meets department in the main hall for lunch. Granny's Pie Shop! Yum. Actually gets to eat lunch instead of wolfing down yogurt, fruit, and crackers while grading papers and helping students with their make-up work.

11. Back from lunch, reads and annotates Romeo and Juliet for the billionth time to prepare for next week's lessons.

12. Grades a (small) stack of papers.

13. Helps mentee with the action plan and records of teaching for mentee's professional evaluation.

14. Updates grades in gradebook.

15. Time to go home (3:15 instead of 4:00-4:30 helping students, grading papers, getting things ready for tomorrow...).

And interesting to note: The bells continue to ring on schedule during a no-student contact day. It is strange to hear them and have them mean nothing. I instinctively look up at the clock to check the time when they ring.

Also to note: The silence (minus bells ringing every 52 minutes) is eerie. That's why I "collaborate with colleagues" so much and also talk to myself.

Last time we had a day without students, my kids came back on Monday asking "What happenend in here?" The answer: When you have a day without students, sometimes all you can bring yourself to do is rearrange the furniture.