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

[Anonymous]

DD has an elective with multiple time consuming assignments a week and the teacher has not posted any grades. There is no way she is going to be able to keep up with grading if she is struggling so much the first month. Plus, they have no idea if they are doing assignments properly and she avoids helping for the part they get done in class. Are there any requirements for posting? This is not like grading English assignments which is labor intensive.

[Anonymous]

I wish there was a requirement.

It makes it very hard to know where your kid is (or for him/her to know where they are in a class) when several MONTHS go by with no grades updated. Or even one month goes by and the grades aren't updated until the quarter ends... doesn't really give a kid a chance to know if they need to do a re-take.

But, based on my experience, there is no "standard" for teachers updating SIS with grades.

[Anonymous]

Contact the teacher then go to the principal if things don't change. That is unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

Stand up for the teachers. The reason they aren’t grassing work quickly is because they have to cover other teacher’s classes during their planning periods.

[Anonymous]

What grade is this? If it’s middle school I wouldn’t care so much.

[Anonymous]

there is a requirement that they post grades in a timely fashion?
that's good
Is that now being enforced?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stand up for the teachers. The reason they aren’t grassing work quickly is because they have to cover other teacher’s classes during their planning periods.

The ones who can't do their jobs had other excuses when they weren't covering other teachers' classes. It's really quite ridiculous and just breeds cynicism and a lack of respect on the part of students when teachers can't get their act together to post grades on a timely basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What grade is this? If it’s middle school I wouldn’t care so much.

After getting no grades in elementary school, start middle school kids off right by teaching them that grades are stressful, arbitrary, late, and very-important-but-impossibly-opaque.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Contact the teacher then go to the principal if things don't change. That is unacceptable.

Principals do t push this excessively as long as report cards are done on time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What grade is this? If it’s middle school I wouldn’t care so much.

After getting no grades in elementary school, start middle school kids off right by teaching them that grades are stressful, arbitrary, late, and very-important-but-impossibly-opaque.

I wish we went back to normal grades in ES.

[Anonymous]

OP here, It's a high school elective. If it were middle school I would not care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stand up for the teachers. The reason they aren’t grassing work quickly is because they have to cover other teacher’s classes during their planning periods.

The ones who can't do their jobs had other excuses when they weren't covering other teachers' classes. It's really quite ridiculous and just breeds cynicism and a lack of respect on the part of students when teachers can't get their act together to post grades on a timely basis.

Do some math.
Let’s say Teacher has 125 students.
It takes him, on average, 4 meninges to grade each assignment and enter that student’s grade online.
125x4=500

For one assignment, we are already talking about about 8 hours of work.

So the teacher gets 2 45 minute planning periods per day, but is covering another teacher’s class (sub shortage) leaving 45 minutes per day of planning time. That time, of course, is only useful for practical matters: answering parent emails, reading all the emails that come in from the county and administration, tidying up the classroom, making copies, etc. actual lesson planning is more time intensive; maybe it’s done for a couple of hours after school a couple of times a week, or for 5-6 hours on Sundays.

So when is all this grading happening? For 2-3 hours a night a few nights a week. On weekends. Or over long weekends and teacher workdays. Maybe, like me, a teacher has been fighting a nasty virus for the last 10 days and doesn’t have the energy or brain power to spend a few hours grading at night. We get backed up. We do our best.

Maybe what “breeds cynicism” among students is not the fact that their teachers attend working 60 hour weeks and grossly overtaxed and over stressed, but the fact that parents like you are accusing them of not “getting their act together” rather than understanding that our class sizes are unreasonably large, our requirements to cover other people’s classes due to the teacher and sub shortage is leaving us with no time to plan or grade, and our colleagues are leaving the profession in droves because it all feels close to impossible right now?

Maybe you could reach out to the teacher and see if they need any support. Maybe you could be patient. Maybe you could be kind. Maybe you could stop speaking so derisively of the people who are trying their best to help your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stand up for the teachers. The reason they aren’t grassing work quickly is because they have to cover other teacher’s classes during their planning periods.

The ones who can't do their jobs had other excuses when they weren't covering other teachers' classes. It's really quite ridiculous and just breeds cynicism and a lack of respect on the part of students when teachers can't get their act together to post grades on a timely basis.

Do some math.
Let’s say Teacher has 125 students.
It takes him, on average, 4 meninges to grade each assignment and enter that student’s grade online.
125x4=500

For one assignment, we are already talking about about 8 hours of work.

So the teacher gets 2 45 minute planning periods per day, but is covering another teacher’s class (sub shortage) leaving 45 minutes per day of planning time. That time, of course, is only useful for practical matters: answering parent emails, reading all the emails that come in from the county and administration, tidying up the classroom, making copies, etc. actual lesson planning is more time intensive; maybe it’s done for a couple of hours after school a couple of times a week, or for 5-6 hours on Sundays.

So when is all this grading happening? For 2-3 hours a night a few nights a week. On weekends. Or over long weekends and teacher workdays. Maybe, like me, a teacher has been fighting a nasty virus for the last 10 days and doesn’t have the energy or brain power to spend a few hours grading at night. We get backed up. We do our best.

Maybe what “breeds cynicism” among students is not the fact that their teachers attend working 60 hour weeks and grossly overtaxed and over stressed, but the fact that parents like you are accusing them of not “getting their act together” rather than understanding that our class sizes are unreasonably large, our requirements to cover other people’s classes due to the teacher and sub shortage is leaving us with no time to plan or grade, and our colleagues are leaving the profession in droves because it all feels close to impossible right now?

Maybe you could reach out to the teacher and see if they need any support. Maybe you could be patient. Maybe you could be kind. Maybe you could stop speaking so derisively of the people who are trying their best to help your kid.

Let’s be real. Teachers assign work or projects for kids to do in class. That actually gives the teacher time to get work done while the kids are working. Generally in middle and high school kids can work without a teacher hovering. The teacher can sit at his/her desk to check emails and grade.

[Anonymous]

We were told assignments/assessments should be in SIS within 2 weeks. I agree there should be something in sis by now—it’s frustrating when teachers don’t give any feedback to kids (hopefully there are ungraded remarks/activities/feedback in class to guide your student). I would have your STUDENT (not you) email the teacher and ask for when she should expect to see marks posted. She can CC you on it if you want in the loop, but it should come from her. If you get no response, it would be fair to reach out to admin.

This year I’m struggling more than ever to give timely feedback. I have 149 students (if I go to 150 they have to pay me more, lol, so they capped one class at 29). 1 minute per student per day is still nearly 90 minutes a day once I’ve entered it (and if I give feedback of any kind beyond just circling errors, up it to 2-3 minutes each). My 3x per week planning is spent lesson planning, not grading, so I’ve spent 2-3 hours every single night since the start of school grading (I give a graded assignment every day—class work or exit ticket or quiz). Today is the first time all year I haven’t touched grading, and I’m going to pay for that this weekend!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stand up for the teachers. The reason they aren’t grassing work quickly is because they have to cover other teacher’s classes during their planning periods.

The ones who can't do their jobs had other excuses when they weren't covering other teachers' classes. It's really quite ridiculous and just breeds cynicism and a lack of respect on the part of students when teachers can't get their act together to post grades on a timely basis.

Do some math.
Let’s say Teacher has 125 students.
It takes him, on average, 4 meninges to grade each assignment and enter that student’s grade online.
125x4=500

For one assignment, we are already talking about about 8 hours of work.

So the teacher gets 2 45 minute planning periods per day, but is covering another teacher’s class (sub shortage) leaving 45 minutes per day of planning time. That time, of course, is only useful for practical matters: answering parent emails, reading all the emails that come in from the county and administration, tidying up the classroom, making copies, etc. actual lesson planning is more time intensive; maybe it’s done for a couple of hours after school a couple of times a week, or for 5-6 hours on Sundays.

So when is all this grading happening? For 2-3 hours a night a few nights a week. On weekends. Or over long weekends and teacher workdays. Maybe, like me, a teacher has been fighting a nasty virus for the last 10 days and doesn’t have the energy or brain power to spend a few hours grading at night. We get backed up. We do our best.

Maybe what “breeds cynicism” among students is not the fact that their teachers attend working 60 hour weeks and grossly overtaxed and over stressed, but the fact that parents like you are accusing them of not “getting their act together” rather than understanding that our class sizes are unreasonably large, our requirements to cover other people’s classes due to the teacher and sub shortage is leaving us with no time to plan or grade, and our colleagues are leaving the profession in droves because it all feels close to impossible right now?

Maybe you could reach out to the teacher and see if they need any support. Maybe you could be patient. Maybe you could be kind. Maybe you could stop speaking so derisively of the people who are trying their best to help your kid.

Let’s be real. Teachers assign work or projects for kids to do in class. That actually gives the teacher time to get work done while the kids are working. Generally in middle and high school kids can work without a teacher hovering. The teacher can sit at his/her desk to check emails and grade.

Are you a teacher? I don’t do that. My 90 minute math block is:
5 minutes: attendance, warm up
25 minutes: notes/lecture
10-15 minutes: activity (quick game to practice a basic new skill, mini Kahoot! to check in how they’re doing, white board check ins)
10-15 minutes: remainder of notes/examples
30 minutes: activity 2 (usually some sort of problem set where it self checks) This is where I pull the 5-10 kids who bombed that first check in activity to a small group at the back table or hallway or just rotate and check in with each of them repeatedly while others work.
5 minutes: exit ticket, monitor to make sure kids are doing their own work.

The only time I’m not talking or helping kids directly is on test days, and then I’m walking around monitoring like a hawk because holy hell your adorable, funny children turn into sneaky, cheating cell phone users with drifting eyeballs on test days, lol

But seriously, I’ve never just sat while kids worked. I don’t think my peers do either. Maybe we are doing it wrong. School is basically a complete 180 from when I was in high school 20 years ago though. I remember my math teacher doing 30 minutes of lecture and 15 minutes free time to “start our homework” each day. That would never fly now.