Why does an ELA teacher need to know about the kid's math xyz? |
Why? |
Are you serious? A teacher who has concerns about a student in their class has a duty to investigate whether the student has trouble across the board, in which case it might indicate more pervasive issues. |
No wonder teachers are struggling. |
Because if I’m working with a kid and see they are struggling in another class, I may ask them about it and give them advice on what to do. Sometimes kids are more receptive to getting feedback from a teacher in a different subject area. -another HS teacher |
Or isn't it weird for the student when a teacher talks to them about a different class? Isn't that the job of a counselor? Oh right, counselors have other things to do and are also overworked. |
I am a non classroom based teacher. If a student was struggling in my ELA class I would want to know how they are doing in classes where the vocabulary, language and reading/writing load is not as demanding. If the dip in their grades was sudden and recent, I would want to know if it was just in my class or not to help determine the cause. My goal is to help my students be successful by looking at the bigger picture. |
Why are you so combative? My kids barely talk to their counselors and are much more connected with their classroom teachers who they see daily. |
The answer to your question was in PP’s response. Just yesterday I looked up a student’s math grade to see whether that student is struggling in classes other than my own. And when I saw that student is struggling across all academic courses, I emailed the teachers to request a meeting. Without access to that information, your overworked teachers have to work even harder. This access provides data points that we can use to support our students. |
Are you thinking a teacher has ill intent finding out more about a student? |
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This is our job. We can't help students if we only have access to limited information. We are required to document parent contact. We have access to this information to look for patterns. We are required to access data about students inorder to write our SLOs. I am a special education teacher and I am required to monitor grades and parent contact to make sure the students on my caseload are being successful. We have access to this information to see if there is documented areas of concerns or successes.
Tell us why you think this is an issue. I also hold National Board Certification. One of the major components for gaining NBCT is in the area of Knowledge of Students. We need this information to best meet the needs of the student. |
| When the end of the quarter is near or the new quarter passes, we often have whole team or department meetings where we pull ALL our students data and reflect on how to best help them. If I teach science, I'm still going to take a look at how your kid scored in math and reading and their grades in other classes to see what I can do differently to help. Maybe there's a gap I need to be addressing. Sometimes we pull this data or it's pulled for us. We may also look at assignment completion across the board too. |
Say all the students teachers get called to a meeting. Before the meeting would be helpful to know if the student is doing better or worse in my class compared to the others. And no, admin don't pull that information for you as a teacher you'd better come to parent meetings with data and receipts or else admin will let the inmates run the asylum. |
OP, the answer to your question: Yes |
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Is there a specific concern you have, OP? A delve into records that went too far?
Like others, I check students grades in other classes when I’m concerned - is it just in my class? Is there a specific weakness in reading or math that might affect what I’m seeing? Are they going to class at all or are they failing because they’re skipping? I look at birthdays too because it’s nice to say happy birthday. I rarely look up addresses but did recently in a conversation with a kid about not coming on time and claimed it was a long walk (it was 2 blocks with no major streets to cross). I’ve looked up siblings to see if they have similar attendance concerns (is it just my kid or a household thing?) It all helps paint a bigger picture and find out if it’s something I can address or something that can be brought to a counselor or ppw. I’m not snooping for fun. I’m gathering data so I help a kid and refer out if I see a concerning pattern. I’ve been able to steer families in the right direction for special ed or transportation or community resources by paying attention to things other than their performance in the 45 minutes I have with them. |