HS Teachers, I'm curious-- do this semester's grade distributions look different from prior years?

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering if students' GPAs are notching downward a bit due to the changing calculation for semester grades.

[Anonymous]

Yes.
Many students who would’ve had A’s for the semester with the previous grading policy will now have semester B’s.

[Anonymous]

Parent here. It has to change. DD's AP Calc BC teacher warned us at BTSN that our kids, maybe for the first time in their lives, would have Bs. And it's true - DD has an A for the semester, but a B for the last quarter. Her first B in math.

I love this new grading policy, BTW. It's so much more fair than the previous one.

[Anonymous]

First year teacher here so i cant compare to previous years but 40% of my 9th graders failed semester 1 of Honors English 9

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First year teacher here so i cant compare to previous years but 40% of my 9th graders failed semester 1 of Honors English 9

??? Are you in a low-income neighborhood?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First year teacher here so i cant compare to previous years but 40% of my 9th graders failed semester 1 of Honors English 9

??? Are you in a low-income neighborhood?

I am outside the Beltway. That is all i will say

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First year teacher here so i cant compare to previous years but 40% of my 9th graders failed semester 1 of Honors English 9

??? Are you in a low-income neighborhood?

I am outside the Beltway. That is all i will say

That's unusually low. If it's in-line with your school's previous achievement, it's not you. If it's not, it's you. Be prepared to document how you did things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First year teacher here so i cant compare to previous years but 40% of my 9th graders failed semester 1 of Honors English 9

??? Are you in a low-income neighborhood?

I am outside the Beltway. That is all i will say

That's unusually low. If it's in-line with your school's previous achievement, it's not you. If it's not, it's you. Be prepared to document how you did things.

It was because of zeros. We had 12 AT assignments and 12 PP assignments in Q2. 24 assignments. The kids who failed on average had 18 missing assignments. I even disobeyed the grading policy and had unlimited deadlines. Nothing. Even the

[Anonymous]

Was going to say, even the lids who did well got like 93% as the highest grade because of zeroes

[Anonymous]

OP here. Mathematically, it seems like this would have to be the effect. But I guess I'm wondering if teachers end up bumping grades up or giving softball assignments because they don't want grades to fall too much. I could imagine the end result not being that much change for various reasons.

btw, I'm totally in favor of the change-- I hated the old system. But I still feel sympathetic for my 11th grader who was completely stressed out most of second quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was going to say, even the lids who did well got like 93% as the highest grade because of zeroes

The freshman at my HS school also struggled. I think they are used the middle schools just giving them credit. I have no data for that, but there must be some reason they think they'll pass with literally no effort at all. Middle school principals put so much pressure on teacher's for their grades and the kids have not been held accountable at all. They also don't seem to care that the they will not pass. I don't know if they think they'll just get an Edmentum alternative, but it's bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was going to say, even the lids who did well got like 93% as the highest grade because of zeroes

The freshman at my HS school also struggled. I think they are used the middle schools just giving them credit. I have no data for that, but there must be some reason they think they'll pass with literally no effort at all. Middle school principals put so much pressure on teacher's for their grades and the kids have not been held accountable at all. They also don't seem to care that the they will not pass. I don't know if they think they'll just get an Edmentum alternative, but it's bad.

Found out that 9th graders have automatic eligibility for sports all year as well. It used to just be fall sports because they were new. Now they can fail every quarter and play sports. As long as they get the 2.0 in Q4 they can play fall sports the next year.

We wont have many sophomores playing sports next year

[Anonymous]

As a teacher I notice there seems to be a trend where either students care and have good grades/effort or the opposite. Not much of a middle in some courses. Combine that with how courses are scheduled and it easy to get a class where half don’t care at all are seeking the floor of bare minimum. Also reading and writing skills get worse every year. So, I can see English courses and Math courses really falling through the floor without D’s rescuing E’s anymore quarter to quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First year teacher here so i cant compare to previous years but 40% of my 9th graders failed semester 1 of Honors English 9

??? Are you in a low-income neighborhood?

I am outside the Beltway. That is all i will say

That's unusually low. If it's in-line with your school's previous achievement, it's not you. If it's not, it's you. Be prepared to document how you did things.

It was because of zeros. We had 12 AT assignments and 12 PP assignments in Q2. 24 assignments. The kids who failed on average had 18 missing assignments. I even disobeyed the grading policy and had unlimited deadlines. Nothing. Even the

I hope you reached out to your team lead or department head to assist you in managing this. You have terrible or even catastrophic stats and really need to figure out how to work through this if you expect to keep your job. I’m not a teacher but it seems like there have to be strategies beyond extending due dates to get kids to a passing level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First year teacher here so i cant compare to previous years but 40% of my 9th graders failed semester 1 of Honors English 9

??? Are you in a low-income neighborhood?

I am outside the Beltway. That is all i will say

That's unusually low. If it's in-line with your school's previous achievement, it's not you. If it's not, it's you. Be prepared to document how you did things.

It was because of zeros. We had 12 AT assignments and 12 PP assignments in Q2. 24 assignments. The kids who failed on average had 18 missing assignments. I even disobeyed the grading policy and had unlimited deadlines. Nothing. Even the

I hope you reached out to your team lead or department head to assist you in managing this. You have terrible or even catastrophic stats and really need to figure out how to work through this if you expect to keep your job. I’m not a teacher but it seems like there have to be strategies beyond extending due dates to get kids to a passing level.

Teacher here at a different school. This is not that unusual actually. Assuming that the previous teacher is at a low income/high immigrant school, you will be shocked at how appalling attendance can be. Two years ago, I had a kid who attended 5 days of school out of a full year and administrators pressured me to pass her so she could graduate. That stuff is harder to pull off now - as it should be.