Does FCPS have any requirements for instructors regarding posting grades in timely fashion

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

This is unsustainable and ridiculous. Please tell your admin (AGAIN!) and maybe just maybe after school work groups, committes, and other nonsense will make way for actual time to give feedback to students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

Exactly!! I did quit. I have another job in FCPS now and still work 60 hour weeks, but it is less relentlessly awful than being an English teacher. It’s funny: when I was in HS in the 80’s, we’d get a 6 page paper back with a big B at the top, maybe one margin comment, maybe nothing but the grade. By the time I was teaching in the mid-90’s, that would NEVER fly. We had rubrics. I wrote extensive comments. If I put a B at the top without backing it up with evidence and substantive feedback, I can’t imagine the parent outcry.

But you know what? The vast majority of the kids didn’t put even 5% the effort I did in terms of feedback. Most didn’t care about anything but the grade. They didn’t read my extensive margin notes.

Now it’s even worse….I’d have to track every kid’s score in each domain on the rubric on a spreadsheet, and then analyze that data in CLT’s, and compare it with other spreadsheets. It’s insane.

Instead of 23 hours of grading, I could go 80’s style and just plonk a B at the top of the vast majority of papers, an A for a few outstanding ones, C’s for papers needing a lot of work, and D’s for half-added messes. Can you imagine the bliss of that? Of maybe giving extensive feedback to the 5% of students who will read it and apply it next time? It would be bliss. But no. We have to have rubies and written justifications and be editors and proofreaders and everything or else we get attacked by parents. I can just see the posts here… my kid’s horrible teacher wrote B on a paper and dissent even provide detailed comments on a rubric!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

This is unsustainable and ridiculous. Please tell your admin (AGAIN!) and maybe just maybe after school work groups, committes, and other nonsense will make way for actual time to give feedback to students.

While that would be helpful, a better solution would be to lower class sizes. Imagine if that stack of essays only amounted to 80 instead of 140. That’s how we can make real change, both in sustainability for teachers and a better classroom environment for students.

There’s very little school-based admin can do to fix these problems. We need a systemic change in how we view this profession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

Exactly!! I did quit. I have another job in FCPS now and still work 60 hour weeks, but it is less relentlessly awful than being an English teacher. It’s funny: when I was in HS in the 80’s, we’d get a 6 page paper back with a big B at the top, maybe one margin comment, maybe nothing but the grade. By the time I was teaching in the mid-90’s, that would NEVER fly. We had rubrics. I wrote extensive comments. If I put a B at the top without backing it up with evidence and substantive feedback, I can’t imagine the parent outcry.

But you know what? The vast majority of the kids didn’t put even 5% the effort I did in terms of feedback. Most didn’t care about anything but the grade. They didn’t read my extensive margin notes.

Now it’s even worse….I’d have to track every kid’s score in each domain on the rubric on a spreadsheet, and then analyze that data in CLT’s, and compare it with other spreadsheets. It’s insane.

Instead of 23 hours of grading, I could go 80’s style and just plonk a B at the top of the vast majority of papers, an A for a few outstanding ones, C’s for papers needing a lot of work, and D’s for half-added messes. Can you imagine the bliss of that? Of maybe giving extensive feedback to the 5% of students who will read it and apply it next time? It would be bliss. But no. We have to have rubies and written justifications and be editors and proofreaders and everything or else we get attacked by parents. I can just see the posts here… my kid’s horrible teacher wrote B on a paper and dissent even provide detailed comments on a rubric!

I remember when we were first told to use rubrics. They were sold as a way to standardize grades, but they would also make our grading a quicker process. The idea was the comment in the rubric box would be *our* comment to the student. Then it merged into leaving rationale in the margins to back up those rubric grades.

If I get a poorly-written paper, it can take as much as 20 minutes to do that. I’d rather just meet with the student after school and help them revise, but I’ve been told they need all my comments as justification / proof that students can take home. Unfortunately, a lot of those poor papers don’t make it home. I find them, complete with all my comments, in the trash can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

Exactly!! I did quit. I have another job in FCPS now and still work 60 hour weeks, but it is less relentlessly awful than being an English teacher. It’s funny: when I was in HS in the 80’s, we’d get a 6 page paper back with a big B at the top, maybe one margin comment, maybe nothing but the grade. By the time I was teaching in the mid-90’s, that would NEVER fly. We had rubrics. I wrote extensive comments. If I put a B at the top without backing it up with evidence and substantive feedback, I can’t imagine the parent outcry.

But you know what? The vast majority of the kids didn’t put even 5% the effort I did in terms of feedback. Most didn’t care about anything but the grade. They didn’t read my extensive margin notes.

Now it’s even worse….I’d have to track every kid’s score in each domain on the rubric on a spreadsheet, and then analyze that data in CLT’s, and compare it with other spreadsheets. It’s insane.

Instead of 23 hours of grading, I could go 80’s style and just plonk a B at the top of the vast majority of papers, an A for a few outstanding ones, C’s for papers needing a lot of work, and D’s for half-added messes. Can you imagine the bliss of that? Of maybe giving extensive feedback to the 5% of students who will read it and apply it next time? It would be bliss. But no. We have to have rubies and written justifications and be editors and proofreaders and everything or else we get attacked by parents. I can just see the posts here… my kid’s horrible teacher wrote B on a paper and dissent even provide detailed comments on a rubric!

I remember when we were first told to use rubrics. They were sold as a way to standardize grades, but they would also make our grading a quicker process. The idea was the comment in the rubric box would be *our* comment to the student. Then it merged into leaving rationale in the margins to back up those rubric grades.

If I get a poorly-written paper, it can take as much as 20 minutes to do that. I’d rather just meet with the student after school and help them revise, but I’ve been told they need all my comments as justification / proof that students can take home. Unfortunately, a lot of those poor papers don’t make it home. I find them, complete with all my comments, in the trash can.

Adding:
I now make students comment back about my comments. It’s cumbersome and redundant, but it forces them to actually READ them. Then they are supposed to complete revisions for a higher score. I may get about 20% back. The good news is that’s fewer papers to grade, I guess, but what it really means is many of my students don’t care that much. That makes me want the simple “this is a B paper” era to come back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

Exactly!! I did quit. I have another job in FCPS now and still work 60 hour weeks, but it is less relentlessly awful than being an English teacher. It’s funny: when I was in HS in the 80’s, we’d get a 6 page paper back with a big B at the top, maybe one margin comment, maybe nothing but the grade. By the time I was teaching in the mid-90’s, that would NEVER fly. We had rubrics. I wrote extensive comments. If I put a B at the top without backing it up with evidence and substantive feedback, I can’t imagine the parent outcry.

But you know what? The vast majority of the kids didn’t put even 5% the effort I did in terms of feedback. Most didn’t care about anything but the grade. They didn’t read my extensive margin notes.

Now it’s even worse….I’d have to track every kid’s score in each domain on the rubric on a spreadsheet, and then analyze that data in CLT’s, and compare it with other spreadsheets. It’s insane.

Instead of 23 hours of grading, I could go 80’s style and just plonk a B at the top of the vast majority of papers, an A for a few outstanding ones, C’s for papers needing a lot of work, and D’s for half-added messes. Can you imagine the bliss of that? Of maybe giving extensive feedback to the 5% of students who will read it and apply it next time? It would be bliss. But no. We have to have rubies and written justifications and be editors and proofreaders and everything or else we get attacked by parents. I can just see the posts here… my kid’s horrible teacher wrote B on a paper and dissent even provide detailed comments on a rubric!

I remember when we were first told to use rubrics. They were sold as a way to standardize grades, but they would also make our grading a quicker process. The idea was the comment in the rubric box would be *our* comment to the student. Then it merged into leaving rationale in the margins to back up those rubric grades.

If I get a poorly-written paper, it can take as much as 20 minutes to do that. I’d rather just meet with the student after school and help them revise, but I’ve been told they need all my comments as justification / proof that students can take home. Unfortunately, a lot of those poor papers don’t make it home. I find them, complete with all my comments, in the trash can.

Adding:
I now make students comment back about my comments. It’s cumbersome and redundant, but it forces them to actually READ them. Then they are supposed to complete revisions for a higher score. I may get about 20% back. The good news is that’s fewer papers to grade, I guess, but what it really means is many of my students don’t care that much. That makes me want the simple “this is a B paper” era to come back.

How many classes do you have to teach? You said about 140 kids, is that 4 or 5 classes? That is definitely a lot. Teachers should only have to teach 3 classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

You all don’t realize that all teachers would like to focus on teaching. We really would. Unfortunately we are a free and easily used labor source for administration and end up as the duct tape that makes schools which don’t have enough counselors, security guards, substitute teachers, or test administrators — keep running. I have little to no time outside of class to plan and grade and I am unwilling to use my weekends or evenings to do extra work. I’m not paid near enough to be working 70 hour weeks.

In any case, you might try to suck it up and appreciate whatever feedback and attention you get, when you get it. You might feel entitled to certain “services” from your teacher but what are you going to do if you don’t get what you think you should get? If you complain to administration, you can bet that you will not be winning the affection of your kid’s teacher and you are probably hastening the teacher exodus.

I'm the person you quoted.

I don't complain, never said I complained. Your attitude stinks and if you can't understand why not grading in a timely fashion is a problem then you are in the wrong career.

The teachers on this site complain ad nauseum about how parents don't do enough, blah, blah, blah, but if work isn't graded, how am I supposed to know my student isn't doing well or how I can help? You tell us repeatedly we should not email the teachers as they don't have enough time to answer.

So tell me, exactly how do I support my student when I don't know how they are doing in class?

Teachers don't really want us to support our students. Teachers want us to support THEM, the teachers, with the vague promise that they can then help our students. It feels like a racket: "You got a nice kid here, would be shame if they didn't get properly educated..."

Nah, I’d just like it if you produced a kid who didn’t act like an entitled asshat when I ask them to do basic tasks. Maybe then I could get more done in class and have time to grade on the schedule you prefer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

You all don’t realize that all teachers would like to focus on teaching. We really would. Unfortunately we are a free and easily used labor source for administration and end up as the duct tape that makes schools which don’t have enough counselors, security guards, substitute teachers, or test administrators — keep running. I have little to no time outside of class to plan and grade and I am unwilling to use my weekends or evenings to do extra work. I’m not paid near enough to be working 70 hour weeks.

In any case, you might try to suck it up and appreciate whatever feedback and attention you get, when you get it. You might feel entitled to certain “services” from your teacher but what are you going to do if you don’t get what you think you should get? If you complain to administration, you can bet that you will not be winning the affection of your kid’s teacher and you are probably hastening the teacher exodus.

I'm the person you quoted.

I don't complain, never said I complained. Your attitude stinks and if you can't understand why not grading in a timely fashion is a problem then you are in the wrong career.

The teachers on this site complain ad nauseum about how parents don't do enough, blah, blah, blah, but if work isn't graded, how am I supposed to know my student isn't doing well or how I can help? You tell us repeatedly we should not email the teachers as they don't have enough time to answer.

So tell me, exactly how do I support my student when I don't know how they are doing in class?

Teachers don't really want us to support our students. Teachers want us to support THEM, the teachers, with the vague promise that they can then help our students. It feels like a racket: "You got a nice kid here, would be shame if they didn't get properly educated..."

Nah, I’d just like it if you produced a kid who didn’t act like an entitled asshat when I ask them to do basic tasks. Maybe then I could get more done in class and have time to grade on the schedule you prefer.

So now it's the kids' fault that you aren't grading? Interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

You all don’t realize that all teachers would like to focus on teaching. We really would. Unfortunately we are a free and easily used labor source for administration and end up as the duct tape that makes schools which don’t have enough counselors, security guards, substitute teachers, or test administrators — keep running. I have little to no time outside of class to plan and grade and I am unwilling to use my weekends or evenings to do extra work. I’m not paid near enough to be working 70 hour weeks.

In any case, you might try to suck it up and appreciate whatever feedback and attention you get, when you get it. You might feel entitled to certain “services” from your teacher but what are you going to do if you don’t get what you think you should get? If you complain to administration, you can bet that you will not be winning the affection of your kid’s teacher and you are probably hastening the teacher exodus.

I'm the person you quoted.

I don't complain, never said I complained. Your attitude stinks and if you can't understand why not grading in a timely fashion is a problem then you are in the wrong career.

The teachers on this site complain ad nauseum about how parents don't do enough, blah, blah, blah, but if work isn't graded, how am I supposed to know my student isn't doing well or how I can help? You tell us repeatedly we should not email the teachers as they don't have enough time to answer.

So tell me, exactly how do I support my student when I don't know how they are doing in class?

Teachers don't really want us to support our students. Teachers want us to support THEM, the teachers, with the vague promise that they can then help our students. It feels like a racket: "You got a nice kid here, would be shame if they didn't get properly educated..."

Nah, I’d just like it if you produced a kid who didn’t act like an entitled asshat when I ask them to do basic tasks. Maybe then I could get more done in class and have time to grade on the schedule you prefer.

So now it's the kids' fault that you aren't grading? Interesting.

NP: OMG, just stop. The teacher is trying to grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

You all don’t realize that all teachers would like to focus on teaching. We really would. Unfortunately we are a free and easily used labor source for administration and end up as the duct tape that makes schools which don’t have enough counselors, security guards, substitute teachers, or test administrators — keep running. I have little to no time outside of class to plan and grade and I am unwilling to use my weekends or evenings to do extra work. I’m not paid near enough to be working 70 hour weeks.

In any case, you might try to suck it up and appreciate whatever feedback and attention you get, when you get it. You might feel entitled to certain “services” from your teacher but what are you going to do if you don’t get what you think you should get? If you complain to administration, you can bet that you will not be winning the affection of your kid’s teacher and you are probably hastening the teacher exodus.

I'm the person you quoted.

I don't complain, never said I complained. Your attitude stinks and if you can't understand why not grading in a timely fashion is a problem then you are in the wrong career.

The teachers on this site complain ad nauseum about how parents don't do enough, blah, blah, blah, but if work isn't graded, how am I supposed to know my student isn't doing well or how I can help? You tell us repeatedly we should not email the teachers as they don't have enough time to answer.

So tell me, exactly how do I support my student when I don't know how they are doing in class?

Teachers don't really want us to support our students. Teachers want us to support THEM, the teachers, with the vague promise that they can then help our students. It feels like a racket: "You got a nice kid here, would be shame if they didn't get properly educated..."

Nah, I’d just like it if you produced a kid who didn’t act like an entitled asshat when I ask them to do basic tasks. Maybe then I could get more done in class and have time to grade on the schedule you prefer.

So now it's the kids' fault that you aren't grading? Interesting.

NP: OMG, just stop. The teacher is trying to grade.

But they aren't trying. Teachers have repeatedly posted in this thread that they have made the decision to not grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

Exactly!! I did quit. I have another job in FCPS now and still work 60 hour weeks, but it is less relentlessly awful than being an English teacher. It’s funny: when I was in HS in the 80’s, we’d get a 6 page paper back with a big B at the top, maybe one margin comment, maybe nothing but the grade. By the time I was teaching in the mid-90’s, that would NEVER fly. We had rubrics. I wrote extensive comments. If I put a B at the top without backing it up with evidence and substantive feedback, I can’t imagine the parent outcry.

But you know what? The vast majority of the kids didn’t put even 5% the effort I did in terms of feedback. Most didn’t care about anything but the grade. They didn’t read my extensive margin notes.

Now it’s even worse….I’d have to track every kid’s score in each domain on the rubric on a spreadsheet, and then analyze that data in CLT’s, and compare it with other spreadsheets. It’s insane.

Instead of 23 hours of grading, I could go 80’s style and just plonk a B at the top of the vast majority of papers, an A for a few outstanding ones, C’s for papers needing a lot of work, and D’s for half-added messes. Can you imagine the bliss of that? Of maybe giving extensive feedback to the 5% of students who will read it and apply it next time? It would be bliss. But no. We have to have rubies and written justifications and be editors and proofreaders and everything or else we get attacked by parents. I can just see the posts here… my kid’s horrible teacher wrote B on a paper and dissent even provide detailed comments on a rubric!

I remember when we were first told to use rubrics. They were sold as a way to standardize grades, but they would also make our grading a quicker process. The idea was the comment in the rubric box would be *our* comment to the student. Then it merged into leaving rationale in the margins to back up those rubric grades.

If I get a poorly-written paper, it can take as much as 20 minutes to do that. I’d rather just meet with the student after school and help them revise, but I’ve been told they need all my comments as justification / proof that students can take home. Unfortunately, a lot of those poor papers don’t make it home. I find them, complete with all my comments, in the trash can.

Adding:
I now make students comment back about my comments. It’s cumbersome and redundant, but it forces them to actually READ them. Then they are supposed to complete revisions for a higher score. I may get about 20% back. The good news is that’s fewer papers to grade, I guess, but what it really means is many of my students don’t care that much. That makes me want the simple “this is a B paper” era to come back.

How many classes do you have to teach? You said about 140 kids, is that 4 or 5 classes? That is definitely a lot. Teachers should only have to teach 3 classes.

We teach 5 plus “advisory” so effectively, we teach 6 classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

You all don’t realize that all teachers would like to focus on teaching. We really would. Unfortunately we are a free and easily used labor source for administration and end up as the duct tape that makes schools which don’t have enough counselors, security guards, substitute teachers, or test administrators — keep running. I have little to no time outside of class to plan and grade and I am unwilling to use my weekends or evenings to do extra work. I’m not paid near enough to be working 70 hour weeks.

In any case, you might try to suck it up and appreciate whatever feedback and attention you get, when you get it. You might feel entitled to certain “services” from your teacher but what are you going to do if you don’t get what you think you should get? If you complain to administration, you can bet that you will not be winning the affection of your kid’s teacher and you are probably hastening the teacher exodus.

I'm the person you quoted.

I don't complain, never said I complained. Your attitude stinks and if you can't understand why not grading in a timely fashion is a problem then you are in the wrong career.

The teachers on this site complain ad nauseum about how parents don't do enough, blah, blah, blah, but if work isn't graded, how am I supposed to know my student isn't doing well or how I can help? You tell us repeatedly we should not email the teachers as they don't have enough time to answer.

So tell me, exactly how do I support my student when I don't know how they are doing in class?

Teachers don't really want us to support our students. Teachers want us to support THEM, the teachers, with the vague promise that they can then help our students. It feels like a racket: "You got a nice kid here, would be shame if they didn't get properly educated..."

Nah, I’d just like it if you produced a kid who didn’t act like an entitled asshat when I ask them to do basic tasks. Maybe then I could get more done in class and have time to grade on the schedule you prefer.

So now it's the kids' fault that you aren't grading? Interesting.

NP: OMG, just stop. The teacher is trying to grade.

But they aren't trying. Teachers have repeatedly posted in this thread that they have made the decision to not grade.

Has anyone said that? I grade everything but, depending on my schedule, it may take up to 3-4 weeks to do so, especially if it’s a paper I want to leave meaningful feedback on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

If you expect assignments to be read and evaluated within a week, please start a group of parents to raise taxes to improve teacher salaries and employ more teachers in order to keep out class sizes lower than 125-150 for Hugh school teachers. Please so the simple math here. One minute per student? 3 minutes per student? Take a guess how long it takes to grade an essay. Now multiply that by how many students. Now so the math on time teachers have to do this…with maybe 1-2 hours of unencumbered planning time per WEEK.

I quit being a high school English teacher because I still have nightmares about ungraded stacks of essays, and my last year teaching HS was 1999. I worked at least 20 hours a week beyond contract time. It is structurally impossible.

+1000

Yes! A thousand times this!

I’m an English teacher. I have 140 students this year. If you average 10 minutes an essay, that’s over 23 hours of nonstop grading for that assignment ALONE. I don’t get to stop planning, teaching, etc., in order to do that. Therefore, that 23 hours just gets put on top of the 60 hours I regularly work a week.

My students are completing in-class essays on Friday. I used to devote the entire weekend to grading essays so I can get them back on time. That’s working 7am-7pm Saturday AND Sunday, and that’s only if I don’t take any breaks. I can’t do that anymore. I’ll quit first.

Exactly!! I did quit. I have another job in FCPS now and still work 60 hour weeks, but it is less relentlessly awful than being an English teacher. It’s funny: when I was in HS in the 80’s, we’d get a 6 page paper back with a big B at the top, maybe one margin comment, maybe nothing but the grade. By the time I was teaching in the mid-90’s, that would NEVER fly. We had rubrics. I wrote extensive comments. If I put a B at the top without backing it up with evidence and substantive feedback, I can’t imagine the parent outcry.

But you know what? The vast majority of the kids didn’t put even 5% the effort I did in terms of feedback. Most didn’t care about anything but the grade. They didn’t read my extensive margin notes.

Now it’s even worse….I’d have to track every kid’s score in each domain on the rubric on a spreadsheet, and then analyze that data in CLT’s, and compare it with other spreadsheets. It’s insane.

Instead of 23 hours of grading, I could go 80’s style and just plonk a B at the top of the vast majority of papers, an A for a few outstanding ones, C’s for papers needing a lot of work, and D’s for half-added messes. Can you imagine the bliss of that? Of maybe giving extensive feedback to the 5% of students who will read it and apply it next time? It would be bliss. But no. We have to have rubies and written justifications and be editors and proofreaders and everything or else we get attacked by parents. I can just see the posts here… my kid’s horrible teacher wrote B on a paper and dissent even provide detailed comments on a rubric!

I remember when we were first told to use rubrics. They were sold as a way to standardize grades, but they would also make our grading a quicker process. The idea was the comment in the rubric box would be *our* comment to the student. Then it merged into leaving rationale in the margins to back up those rubric grades.

If I get a poorly-written paper, it can take as much as 20 minutes to do that. I’d rather just meet with the student after school and help them revise, but I’ve been told they need all my comments as justification / proof that students can take home. Unfortunately, a lot of those poor papers don’t make it home. I find them, complete with all my comments, in the trash can.

Adding:
I now make students comment back about my comments. It’s cumbersome and redundant, but it forces them to actually READ them. Then they are supposed to complete revisions for a higher score. I may get about 20% back. The good news is that’s fewer papers to grade, I guess, but what it really means is many of my students don’t care that much. That makes me want the simple “this is a B paper” era to come back.

How many classes do you have to teach? You said about 140 kids, is that 4 or 5 classes? That is definitely a lot. Teachers should only have to teach 3 classes.

We all have about 150 kids, but they don’t count advisory. Some teachers don’t do anything with their advisory. Others, like me, treat them like adopted children who we need to keep tabs on. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an ongoing issue and I'm not a teacher hater, I respect teachers, but this happens consistently in my experience with high school.

Last year, my child received a poor grade for the quarter and the teacher contacted us with concerns about the student's performance -- this was once the quarter was over. I asked how does it get to this point? Shouldn't there have obvious signs the quarter wasn't going well? Teacher didn't know until after the quarter was done as the grades weren't done until the end of the quarter and she assumed everything was okay since the kid did fine the previous quarter.

Grading should happen consistently and timely throughout a quarter so that kids know where they stand, parents can check in and see what's going on, and teachers know if they need to course adjust.

I don't expect grading to happen instantaneously, but it should happen within a week of an assignment being handed in or a test being completed.

You all don’t realize that all teachers would like to focus on teaching. We really would. Unfortunately we are a free and easily used labor source for administration and end up as the duct tape that makes schools which don’t have enough counselors, security guards, substitute teachers, or test administrators — keep running. I have little to no time outside of class to plan and grade and I am unwilling to use my weekends or evenings to do extra work. I’m not paid near enough to be working 70 hour weeks.

In any case, you might try to suck it up and appreciate whatever feedback and attention you get, when you get it. You might feel entitled to certain “services” from your teacher but what are you going to do if you don’t get what you think you should get? If you complain to administration, you can bet that you will not be winning the affection of your kid’s teacher and you are probably hastening the teacher exodus.

I'm the person you quoted.

I don't complain, never said I complained. Your attitude stinks and if you can't understand why not grading in a timely fashion is a problem then you are in the wrong career.

The teachers on this site complain ad nauseum about how parents don't do enough, blah, blah, blah, but if work isn't graded, how am I supposed to know my student isn't doing well or how I can help? You tell us repeatedly we should not email the teachers as they don't have enough time to answer.

So tell me, exactly how do I support my student when I don't know how they are doing in class?

Teachers don't really want us to support our students. Teachers want us to support THEM, the teachers, with the vague promise that they can then help our students. It feels like a racket: "You got a nice kid here, would be shame if they didn't get properly educated..."

Nah, I’d just like it if you produced a kid who didn’t act like an entitled asshat when I ask them to do basic tasks. Maybe then I could get more done in class and have time to grade on the schedule you prefer.

So now it's the kids' fault that you aren't grading? Interesting.

NP: OMG, just stop. The teacher is trying to grade.

But they aren't trying. Teachers have repeatedly posted in this thread that they have made the decision to not grade.

Please point to ONE post in which a teacher says she won’t grade. You refuse to acknowledge the actual issue: grading is 1 of about 100 responsibilities we have. Teachers have explained why it is often the last priority. That isn’t a good thing, of course, but there is no viable alternative.