Some are more equal than others

I arrived at 7:15 to my room; what will not be my room after today.  I graded a few more final exams and took another trip of items from the classroom to my car.  A neighboring teacher was also moving quickly through the halls with a stressed look- she had to change rooms now that exams were finished.  At least she has a room to move to.  I'm packed into a small office with all my stuff as well as Mr. I's desk and stuff.  The door opens about 3 feet wide at most.  I'm thinking I'll go out the window in the event of a fire.  Mrs B found out that another teacher was moving into her old room and she had today only to move all her things to the new location.  It seems about 6 or 7 other teachers are either going from a classroom to a cart or to another classroom.  Its only November!  Fortunately I made all my finals multiple choice for a scan tron machine, but also have second sets of exams for the various IEP's, and have to be ready for unannounced "make-ups".  I was hoping to have time to plan for the new courses I'll be teaching next Tuesday... so far I have a curriculum guide I wrote for one course (over a long weekend) and managed to photocopy 35 copies of the first chapter of the text for the first 2 weeks.  35 copies is a class set of texts, since I High School hasn't filled the orders I made (3 times) for 150 textbooks.  To date I have 12 students failing, only 3 of them would I recognize due to more than 25 absences since Sept.  Most students have B's and C's.  A small amount have A's.  My conclusion:  attendance is one of the primary factors for academic success.  Half of my 110 students have over 15 absences (in 3 months), another half of them have over 20 absences. A handful have missed all but 3 days of class.  If No Child Left Behind was serious about raising test scores in "failing" schools, it would somehow address the issue of poor attendance.