Your chance to tell MCPS what you think of ParentVue

[Anonymous]

Please do write in with feedback. It would be so nice to have a system where we didn’t have to toggle across Synergy/ParentVue/Canvas and to have a system that function like it was designed in 1998.

The MCCPTA Tech Committee has been talking to MCPS about Synergy. They’ve heard from parents and guardians and are looking for solutions to propose to MCPS.

If you or someone you know have experience with Synergy or education platforms and what can be done, we’d love your input. Email us at [e-mail] AND [e-mail].

And if you’re a teacher, we’d love to hear your thoughts on Remind/Parentvue/Canvas.

1) What are the challenges?
2) What would help you?
3) What are hurdles, both technical and operational, to uploading grades and assignment updates?
4) Why do different teachers use different communication methods? (Remind, email, Parentvue)?

If you’d rather send something private, email [e-mail] and [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

Search the many threads started on here in last month or so when school started. Why is the system two decades behind?

[Anonymous]

My hot take: parents shouldn’t be able to see every single assignment. Just show us interims and final quarter grades. It’s driving us insane and driving our children insane to see every assignment as you grade it (or haven’t graded it yet, or it was done in class, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Search the many threads started on here in last month or so when school started. Why is the system two decades behind?

I think the point is that you can share your thoughts with the emails above, rather than reiterate everything (and lord knows there's a lot) wrong with ParentVue here again

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My hot take: parents shouldn’t be able to see every single assignment. Just show us interims and final quarter grades. It’s driving us insane and driving our children insane to see every assignment as you grade it (or haven’t graded it yet, or it was done in class, etc.).

I agree 100%, but we should be able to see if it was handed in - at least in middle school while we support kids learning to do it themselves. My sixth grader forgot to hit “submit” on a few things and I was the one who noticed. A quick chat; a few clicks; and done with no drama. But the missing would would have dinged his trade unnecessarily.

By high school, I probably won’t even need to check, but it was helpful in the first few weeks of sixth grade.

[Anonymous]

This seems to be for teachers/school personnel only. Are they soliciting (more) feedback from parents and/or students?

I don't remember seeing an announcement about this (but I think I'm numb to the eleventy canvas, etc. updates, so I could've easily overlooked it!)

[Anonymous]

I just want a key to what things mean.

My kid has a T/19. What the heck is a T? How can a missing assignment have a grade? Does 4/8 mean my kid did poorly or didn’t hand it in?

[Anonymous]

How about ALL teachers enter grades grades within a week of assignment, quiz, project and test. unreasonable? And enter it where parents can see it, not some X classroom or Y board or whatever all these names mean.

-signed parent with 5+ years and still don't get what all the damn platforms are and who has access to what

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want a key to what things mean.

My kid has a T/19. What the heck is a T? How can a missing assignment have a grade? Does 4/8 mean my kid did poorly or didn’t hand it in?

The terminology has changed since we were in school. Instead of homework, there are “practice” assignments and “tasks.” Instead of quizzes and tests there are “exit cards” and “assessments.” I assume “T” is “All Tasks.”

Last year, (some? all?) high schools implemented a systems where a final grade of 50% meant the assignment was never turned in. Some teachers enter it into the grade book as a 0 until final grades are due so it’s obvious the assignment wasn’t turned in and students feel some urgency to pull up their grades by turning the assignment in, even though it’s late. Other teachers enter it as 50% right off the bat. In order to differentiate between assignments that were never turned in at all and assignments that were turned in but their actual grade was 50%, as long as a student makes any effort to work on the assignment and turns it in, the grade will be 50.1%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want a key to what things mean.

My kid has a T/19. What the heck is a T? How can a missing assignment have a grade? Does 4/8 mean my kid did poorly or didn’t hand it in?

The terminology has changed since we were in school. Instead of homework, there are “practice” assignments and “tasks.” Instead of quizzes and tests there are “exit cards” and “assessments.” I assume “T” is “All Tasks.”

Last year, (some? all?) high schools implemented a systems where a final grade of 50% meant the assignment was never turned in. Some teachers enter it into the grade book as a 0 until final grades are due so it’s obvious the assignment wasn’t turned in and students feel some urgency to pull up their grades by turning the assignment in, even though it’s late. Other teachers enter it as 50% right off the bat. In order to differentiate between assignments that were never turned in at all and assignments that were turned in but their actual grade was 50%, as long as a student makes any effort to work on the assignment and turns it in, the grade will be 50.1%.

To clarify, 50% grades for assignments that were never handed in wasn’t new; the new part was giving 50.1% to students in lieu of 50% when that was the actual grade earned.

[Anonymous]

OMG nothing works the way you want it to work. The first version worked the best.

You need to be able to filter by AT and PP assignments IN THE MOBILE APP. Why would you take away that functionality? They need to also note what assignments are AT and PP on the first screen for a class instead of having to hit the "..." expansion for every assignment. Do you even have kids in the school system? This is so basic my mind hurts thinking of what kind of person would have taken that functionality away. It makes a huge difference whether an assignment is AT or PP.

You need to be able to default to the more narrow/compact view so you can see all the assignments without having to scroll and then forgetting what was on the first screen or other screens.

You need to be able to set the assignment view as default and not have to change to assignment view from that horrible "course content view" EVERY CLASS you want to view. What a waste of time.

The app works about 2/3 of the time I try to log in. Come on. You can do better than that.

[Anonymous]

3) What are hurdles, both technical and operational, to uploading grades and assignment updates?

You have to manually sync your grades after you input them into Canvas. They should automatically sync immediately or a few times a week.

Google classroom docs or forms don't work as they should. If a student submits an assignment through a form it's still marked as not submitted.

4) Why do different teachers use different communication methods? (Remind, email, Parentvue)?

There should be a standard and don't get me started on the .net and .org accounts. Many teachers do not check their .org accounts. Why would MCPS give them so many accounts then? Why not just have the .org accounts always forward to .net? That's an easy fix that could be done and that would save so many headaches for students and teachers.

Remind is a good platform but no one uses it because it's yet another thing you have to log in to. You left. Canvas of your list. Many teachers also send students Canvas comments which appear on emails to students.

[Anonymous]

3) What are hurdles, both technical and operational, to uploading grades and assignment updates?

On Canvas, there's no way to specify in an "assignment" if an assignment is all tasks or practice. Some teachers put that in the titles of the assignments but others don't. It should be a clearly marked field that displays on the Canvas assignment.

[Anonymous]

I keep getting canvas notifications that say my kid got a 0 out of 10 and a 5 out of 10 on assignments and my kid keeps insisting that it’s a system error. Interim grades came back straight As so I guess he’s not making it up. But would be nice if parents could get info that we trust….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My hot take: parents shouldn’t be able to see every single assignment. Just show us interims and final quarter grades. It’s driving us insane and driving our children insane to see every assignment as you grade it (or haven’t graded it yet, or it was done in class, etc.).

I want to see every assignment and comments/grades. You are a lazy parent.