Docking grades in elementary school

[Anonymous]

3rd grader will bring home classwork that says "Needed some guidance B" or "Needed a lot of guidance D". The assignment will be completely correct and it seems like the teacher is docking dd for asking for help. New to MCPS, is this normal? I feel like it is teaching her that if she asks for help she will get a bad grade.

[Anonymous]

That's horrible if that is what they are doing.

[Anonymous]

At certain schools, there are bad apples. This happened to my kid as well.

Unfortunately, it's your word against the teacher's. I'd start documenting any issues and ask the Principal to switch classrooms.

[Anonymous]

At least you get the assignments back. We never got anything back. It is concerning the teacher doesn't review it with the kids but that is normal. They should not get docked for asking for help.

[Anonymous]

Or, the teacher grading what the student was able to complete independently, and then offering guidance so she can see it completed correctly. Your DD should ask for help when she needs it,but if the assignment is for a grade, she shouldn't expect to get an A when the teacher helped her do it.

[Anonymous]

The great news is that it is 3rd grade and the actual grade doesn’t matter.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think you are getting the whole story. I would email the teacher and ask what DD or you need to do to get the grades up.

[Anonymous]

I think that the grade is based on what your child can complete independently. If they needed a little support to get it correct, that is a B in standards based grading. If your child needed extensive support and was unable to complete the work at all, than a D is appropriate. I actually prefer that to just giving A’s even when the teacher is almost spoon feeding the answers (that happens a lot with one of my kids with an IEP).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think you are getting the whole story. I would email the teacher and ask what DD or you need to do to get the grades up.

I'm going by what the assignment says. The answers are correct but at the top the teacher has written "Need a lot of guidance. D" The grade in the parentvue gradebook for the assignment is D.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that the grade is based on what your child can complete independently. If they needed a little support to get it correct, that is a B in standards based grading. If your child needed extensive support and was unable to complete the work at all, than a D is appropriate. I actually prefer that to just giving A’s even when the teacher is almost spoon feeding the answers (that happens a lot with one of my kids with an IEP).

I get this and I see your point. The other thing is that this school offers free tutoring. The teacher says she is doing fine and doesn't need tutoring. She brought home 4 Ds this week. That is doing fine?? I've also asked about an IEP and crickets. Do you know who I talk to at the school about having her evaluated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that the grade is based on what your child can complete independently. If they needed a little support to get it correct, that is a B in standards based grading. If your child needed extensive support and was unable to complete the work at all, than a D is appropriate. I actually prefer that to just giving A’s even when the teacher is almost spoon feeding the answers (that happens a lot with one of my kids with an IEP).

I get this and I see your point. The other thing is that this school offers free tutoring. The teacher says she is doing fine and doesn't need tutoring. She brought home 4 Ds this week. That is doing fine?? I've also asked about an IEP and crickets. Do you know who I talk to at the school about having her evaluated?

Talk to the counselor at the school.

[Anonymous]

I love that teacher. Yes, if the teacher has to walk a kid through an assignment the kid should earn a worse grade than a kid getting the same answers without needing help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that the grade is based on what your child can complete independently. If they needed a little support to get it correct, that is a B in standards based grading. If your child needed extensive support and was unable to complete the work at all, than a D is appropriate. I actually prefer that to just giving A’s even when the teacher is almost spoon feeding the answers (that happens a lot with one of my kids with an IEP).

I get this and I see your point. The other thing is that this school offers free tutoring. The teacher says she is doing fine and doesn't need tutoring. She brought home 4 Ds this week. That is doing fine?? I've also asked about an IEP and crickets. Do you know who I talk to at the school about having her evaluated?

Does your child have a disability? That is your first hurdle. You can either ask the school to evaluate or you can get private evaluations. The SN board has a lot of parents who have been through the process. Some have had an easy time and some have not. I have two kids with SN and I have a mixed experience - for one I was able to get everything and for the other I had to work a bit at making services happen.

So, PP is right that the first step is to talk to the counselor. But if you don’t already have a disability diagnosis it might be more prudent to pursue that first.

As for the grade, a D makes sense if she required a lot of help. As for not needing tutoring you might want to ask the teacher about the apparent inconsistency between her performance and the opinion that tutoring is not necessary.

[Anonymous]

Third grader here too. No docking grades, but we don't get any assignments back. My child has an IEP, IEP is not followed, and I would really like to see the assignments to see how DC is progressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that the grade is based on what your child can complete independently. If they needed a little support to get it correct, that is a B in standards based grading. If your child needed extensive support and was unable to complete the work at all, than a D is appropriate. I actually prefer that to just giving A’s even when the teacher is almost spoon feeding the answers (that happens a lot with one of my kids with an IEP).

I get this and I see your point. The other thing is that this school offers free tutoring. The teacher says she is doing fine and doesn't need tutoring. She brought home 4 Ds this week. That is doing fine?? I've also asked about an IEP and crickets. Do you know who I talk to at the school about having her evaluated?

Talk to the counselor at the school.

And be prepared to hire an advocate.