Parent Vue Complaint

[Anonymous]

My child is a freshman at Blair. I’m so frustrated with Parent Vue. Why can parents see if their child has turned in an assignment? Can we as parents do anything about it?

[Anonymous]

I direct you to your previous thread https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1060824.page

[Anonymous]

Thanks

[Anonymous]

And I say this in the nicest way possible but, is it possible it’s not a parent vue problem? I don’t think you’re very tech literate? Just wondering since you couldn’t find the previous thread that were just a few threads down from this one in the morning. If your child has a missing assignment it’s shows up.

[Anonymous]

I have an ADHD child with an IEP who has goals and is supposed to receive support for turning in assignments.

Not only is ParentVue terrible - it is often not updated, case managers say they don’t have access to the students underlying gradebook, I am repeatedly told that MCPS Classroom (which is how students track their assignments is “not accurate” and that parents can’t access it because it is “not accurate”. I can only access MCPS Classroom, when I have my students login - there is no parent login.

Add to that that a significant number of teachers do not grade in a timely fashion nor even within the contractually required 3 weeks - it is basically really difficult for parents and (some) students to track assignments. I see this as both a parent and someone who works with students.

It’s so bad I am contemplating filing a federal civil rights complaint over the lack of implementation of the IEP, not just because our student with a disability is impacted but also because many students and families are impacted by crappy ParentVue and MCPS classroom.

MCPS knows this is a problem - when I complained to tech support that there were significant differences in ParentVue and MCPSClassroom, MCPS directed teachers to stop posting the grading link in MCPS classroom instead of fixing the problem.

[Anonymous]

I totally agree with everything PP said as far as issues. I complained to the Board and all it got me was a call from the school principal asking how they could help, which was useless.

[Anonymous]

You can’t tell if the student turned it in. You have to sit with your student and ask them to show you it was submitted in Canvas. Ask me how I know. And then, to add insult to injury, sometime the teacher doesn’t receive it and it’s marked missing in ParentVUE anyway.
This horrible system is too much for kids to keep up with. My middle schooler is constantly following up on grading issues. I have no idea how this has been allowed to stay in place for so long considering there are some students who won’t sort these issues out at all and will see lower grades as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I totally agree with everything PP said as far as issues. I complained to the Board and all it got me was a call from the school principal asking how they could help, which was useless.

wow they must really care to call you about this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an ADHD child with an IEP who has goals and is supposed to receive support for turning in assignments.

Not only is ParentVue terrible - it is often not updated, case managers say they don’t have access to the students underlying gradebook, I am repeatedly told that MCPS Classroom (which is how students track their assignments is “not accurate” and that parents can’t access it because it is “not accurate”. I can only access MCPS Classroom, when I have my students login - there is no parent login.

Add to that that a significant number of teachers do not grade in a timely fashion nor even within the contractually required 3 weeks - it is basically really difficult for parents and (some) students to track assignments. I see this as both a parent and someone who works with students.

It’s so bad I am contemplating filing a federal civil rights complaint over the lack of implementation of the IEP, not just because our student with a disability is impacted but also because many students and families are impacted by crappy ParentVue and MCPS classroom.

MCPS knows this is a problem - when I complained to tech support that there were significant differences in ParentVue and MCPSClassroom, MCPS directed teachers to stop posting the grading link in MCPS classroom instead of fixing the problem.

Sounds like a good workaround for the limitations of the software.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an ADHD child with an IEP who has goals and is supposed to receive support for turning in assignments.

Not only is ParentVue terrible - it is often not updated, case managers say they don’t have access to the students underlying gradebook, I am repeatedly told that MCPS Classroom (which is how students track their assignments is “not accurate” and that parents can’t access it because it is “not accurate”. I can only access MCPS Classroom, when I have my students login - there is no parent login.

Add to that that a significant number of teachers do not grade in a timely fashion nor even within the contractually required 3 weeks - it is basically really difficult for parents and (some) students to track assignments. I see this as both a parent and someone who works with students.

It’s so bad I am contemplating filing a federal civil rights complaint over the lack of implementation of the IEP, not just because our student with a disability is impacted but also because many students and families are impacted by crappy ParentVue and MCPS classroom.

MCPS knows this is a problem - when I complained to tech support that there were significant differences in ParentVue and MCPSClassroom, MCPS directed teachers to stop posting the grading link in MCPS classroom instead of fixing the problem.

I'll begin by saying that I agree with you the Parentvue and Canvas (MCPS classroom) are just terrible. I've hated them for years. But I think there is more nuance than you are saying. It just takes a lot of patience to figure it out because teachers deal with the systems in very different ways.

The pp's advice to have the kid log in to their account-- they see things in an up-to-date way that is much more helpful. But that doesn't always work well-- if the kid is belligerent when parents look over the shoulder, or if you want to give the kid latitude to succeed on their own but also want to monitor.

After several years of this with three kids, I will say the following:
* A whole lot of this is teacher specific. My kids have a few teachers that are outstanding at communicating through Parentvue. They grade quickly and also quickly flag missing assignments. In the case of most teachers, a 50% score indicates it is missing (whether or not the word 'missing' is there). Of course, this could mean that the kid submitted and did very badly, but in my experience it's almost always that the assignments are missing. (In one case, my kid flunked one test and the teacher entered the grade as 50.01% which I thought was a great way to convey the information-- but most teachers don't do this.)

In short, you are looking for any assignment of a 50%, exactly. Those are most likely missing.

* You CAN go into MCPS classroom and look at the raw submissions. Don't look at the final totaled score or anything like that (they are most likely not weighted the way the final grade will be, and some assignments are submitted through other means, so they are in Parentvue but not Canvas. ) Again, the usefulness is teacher specific. My kid has one teacher who is completely irresponsible in my opinion. She puts lists assignments in Canvas that are automatically noted as 'missing' at the due date, even though the kid submitted on paper, etc. There is also a problem when half a test is multiple choice and graded automatically and the other half of the test requires manual grading--until the second half is graded, the kid looks like they failed the test.) But my kid has another teacher who does a great job with Canvas-- most assignments are set up in a way that I can click through and read the actual essay that my kid submitted. So at this point, I know which classes I can trust in myMCPS and which I can't.

In sum, it's probably too late in the semester for this to be helpful, but for next year, click through to myMCPS regularly at the beginning of the term and you'll probably find it helpful in some but not all classes.

Finally, if you are going to contact your school's administration, I think the 'ask' should be that teachers be trained and required to use myMCPS and Parentvue in the most helpful ways-- which is to say, there should be consistency across teachers, and that they not be allowed to set the system up in a way that conveys inaccurate information (e.g., setting the system up in a way that says something is missing when it was really submitted on paper, etc.)