"Why are you in my class again?"

I teach at 2 schools, one of which has a placement test taken at the end of your first year for diagnosing writing problems. I teach both the expository course the students take immediately before the writing test, and the basic one they take if they fail the writing test. I have a student, Johnny (obviously, not his real name), who is in both of my courses - which made no sense, but the department head said, "Just let him figure it out."

After he turned in his first paper for the expository course, it was very clear that he had no business being in the "basic" class. It was, by far, the best-written paper in the class. So I asked him, "Why are you in my other course?" He said he had received a letter from the school that said that according to the results of his placement tests, he had to be in my basic class. I was confused... was he a transfer student? Did he take the test early? But, rather than ask these questions, I helped him figure out how to take the placement test, which, if he passed, would enable him to withdraw from the basic course.

I inform my boss of the situation - and she looks into it. Turns out - he never took the writing placement test. He took the speech placement test, which is apparently given at orientation, and which I had no clue existed, and thus had no idea what test he was talking about. And the school made a very expensive, very frustrating clerical error that I, who hadn't been given enough information about the system, had to try to sort out!

Fortunately, I found this out before he came to my basic class. I felt certain he would attend, as he'd been in the expository course this morning. Nope. He was absent. Of course.

I hope he got my email, telling him not to take the test.

That's the thing with adjuncting - you don't get to know the system until you're confronted with its problems.