I Hate Synergy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Today is the last day of the quarter. My child has a teacher that hasn’t posted grades for assignments due in May. Synergy has not been synced the whole month of June. We are trying to use Canvas but because some assignments are weighted toward a 90% category and some are 10%, we have no idea where my son stand right now in a class. He could have an A, B, or C depending on what is calculated towards the 90% category. It’s also very difficult to know what is missing because the teacher doesn’t use 0s or any method to flag an assignment as missing.

Families should have better information to track a student’s progress in a class.

The teacher can’t use zeros most likely. Most schools prohibited it or made teachers get a written acknowledgement from parents that they knew an assignment was missing. Why doesn’t your son know what work he hasn’t completed? I have two 9th graders and don’t need to make posts like yours.

[Anonymous]

The teacher can set up her assignments to show missing if nothing is submitted in Canvas. Why they chose not to do this is beyond me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The teacher can set up her assignments to show missing if nothing is submitted in Canvas. Why they chose not to do this is beyond me.

at our elementary that's par for the course

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today is the last day of the quarter. My child has a teacher that hasn’t posted grades for assignments due in May. Synergy has not been synced the whole month of June. We are trying to use Canvas but because some assignments are weighted toward a 90% category and some are 10%, we have no idea where my son stand right now in a class. He could have an A, B, or C depending on what is calculated towards the 90% category. It’s also very difficult to know what is missing because the teacher doesn’t use 0s or any method to flag an assignment as missing.

Families should have better information to track a student’s progress in a class.

The teacher can’t use zeros most likely. Most schools prohibited it or made teachers get a written acknowledgement from parents that they knew an assignment was missing. Why doesn’t your son know what work he hasn’t completed? I have two 9th graders and don’t need to make posts like yours.

Don’t be an ass. Many kids are struggling with issues like ADHD or mental health challenges this year of working from home that make tracking assignments challenging. My kid also is struggling tracking assignments and so are thousands of kids in the system. PPs have all made legitimate criticisms of the workflow policies and tools MCPS uses.

[Anonymous]

I’m a teacher. I used to post zeros for missing assignments and then change it to 50% but the school told us we need to give 50% from the beginning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher. I used to post zeros for missing assignments and then change it to 50% but the school told us we need to give 50% from the beginning

This seems to be the school-level policy at many schools, no matter what the county policy says. And the school policy can be more strict than the county policy. Teachers are held accountable for following school policies as well. Parents might want the zeros as a warning, but if the school forbid zeros or said teachers have to perform a standing back salto tucked with a full twist in order to give a zero, they are going to see a 50%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today is the last day of the quarter. My child has a teacher that hasn’t posted grades for assignments due in May. Synergy has not been synced the whole month of June. We are trying to use Canvas but because some assignments are weighted toward a 90% category and some are 10%, we have no idea where my son stand right now in a class. He could have an A, B, or C depending on what is calculated towards the 90% category. It’s also very difficult to know what is missing because the teacher doesn’t use 0s or any method to flag an assignment as missing.

Families should have better information to track a student’s progress in a class.

The teacher can’t use zeros most likely. Most schools prohibited it or made teachers get a written acknowledgement from parents that they knew an assignment was missing. Why doesn’t your son know what work he hasn’t completed? I have two 9th graders and don’t need to make posts like yours.

Don’t be an ass. Many kids are struggling with issues like ADHD or mental health challenges this year of working from home that make tracking assignments challenging. My kid also is struggling tracking assignments and so are thousands of kids in the system. PPs have all made legitimate criticisms of the workflow policies and tools MCPS uses.

According to DCUM’s posts, every kid in MCPS has ADHD or depression or was watching 6 younger siblings while the parents worked as Covid doctors/grocery store workers. The county’s stats don’t bear that out. The pandemic was a shock, but mild inconvenience for the majority of children whose parents are posting complaints here. Those kids either decided on their own to phone it on or their parents encouraged them to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today is the last day of the quarter. My child has a teacher that hasn’t posted grades for assignments due in May. Synergy has not been synced the whole month of June. We are trying to use Canvas but because some assignments are weighted toward a 90% category and some are 10%, we have no idea where my son stand right now in a class. He could have an A, B, or C depending on what is calculated towards the 90% category. It’s also very difficult to know what is missing because the teacher doesn’t use 0s or any method to flag an assignment as missing.

Families should have better information to track a student’s progress in a class.

The teacher can’t use zeros most likely. Most schools prohibited it or made teachers get a written acknowledgement from parents that they knew an assignment was missing. Why doesn’t your son know what work he hasn’t completed? I have two 9th graders and don’t need to make posts like yours.

Don’t be an ass. Many kids are struggling with issues like ADHD or mental health challenges this year of working from home that make tracking assignments challenging. My kid also is struggling tracking assignments and so are thousands of kids in the system. PPs have all made legitimate criticisms of the workflow policies and tools MCPS uses.

According to DCUM’s posts, every kid in MCPS has ADHD or depression or was watching 6 younger siblings while the parents worked as Covid doctors/grocery store workers. The county’s stats don’t bear that out. The pandemic was a shock, but mild inconvenience for the majority of children whose parents are posting complaints here. Those kids either decided on their own to phone it on or their parents encouraged them to do so.

Ditto on the don’t be an ass. I’m a high school teacher and after Semester A made some school wide changes in how things were assigned and how Canvas had to look so that kids could find things. My own kid at another high school was struggling to turn things in on time because he never knew what was actually due when. I finally got his login to look through Canvas, and OMFG what a freaking unhelpful mess. Only 3 teachers had some sort of organization structure and regular pattern of assignments, only 2 had instructional materials posted. If a kid missed some verbal instruction during class time, they were immediately lost about what was going on. Build two or three classes in a row like that, they are so behind they can’t catch up, alcant figure it out on their own from the Canvas disaster, and are too embarrassed to ask. Hello, anxiety.

This year stank and I’m glad it’s over. If you and you kids made it through relatively unscathed or even more successful than before, good for you. But try counting your blessings instead of gloating that you are somehow better than everyone who had a less than successful year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher. I used to post zeros for missing assignments and then change it to 50% but the school told us we need to give 50% from the beginning

The school year has just ended and I finally just learn this! Ha! For a little while there, I was seeing my 9th grader getting 50% on his assignments for one class. I thought he was rushing through the work or just not doing half of the assignment. But now I know he probably just didn't do them. But for most of his other classes I would see zeros. I think at one point my DS tried to explain this to me.

Overall, between Synergy and MyMCPS, I felt I was able to monitor my kids' progress/status well enough. It took awhile for me to learn the ins-and-outs but it was sufficient. I'm hoping the county will have something that helps me monitor if classwork is getting done once school is back in person.

[Anonymous]

I'm hoping now that this covid nightmare year is over, they'll have some time to finish the integration of the systems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm hoping now that this covid nightmare year is over, they'll have some time to finish the integration of the systems.

COVID cannot be blamed for the problems with integration of a computer system. MCPS was planning on Synergy before COVID and MCPS staff supposedly was working during COVID. Yes this year was a nightmare for students. MCPS really failed students with their incompetence this year.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if MCPS kept Synergy broken for an entire school year to cover up how much grade inflation was going on. At least for my child, Canvas has a much different level of performance than Synergy communicates. His report card grades are fine but Canvas shows many assignments he failed but received 100% completion. You think this year was rough, what is going to happen next year? There is a price to pay when children are passed on without the skills they were supposed to learn this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm hoping now that this covid nightmare year is over, they'll have some time to finish the integration of the systems.

COVID cannot be blamed for the problems with integration of a computer system. MCPS was planning on Synergy before COVID and MCPS staff supposedly was working during COVID. Yes this year was a nightmare for students. MCPS really failed students with their incompetence this year.

A lot of IT payroll went into supporting all the distance learning stuff we had to learn on the fly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Today is the last day of the quarter. My child has a teacher that hasn’t posted grades for assignments due in May. Synergy has not been synced the whole month of June. We are trying to use Canvas but because some assignments are weighted toward a 90% category and some are 10%, we have no idea where my son stand right now in a class. He could have an A, B, or C depending on what is calculated towards the 90% category. It’s also very difficult to know what is missing because the teacher doesn’t use 0s or any method to flag an assignment as missing.

Families should have better information to track a student’s progress in a class.

The teacher can’t use zeros most likely. Most schools prohibited it or made teachers get a written acknowledgement from parents that they knew an assignment was missing. Why doesn’t your son know what work he hasn’t completed? I have two 9th graders and don’t need to make posts like yours.

Don’t be an ass. Many kids are struggling with issues like ADHD or mental health challenges this year of working from home that make tracking assignments challenging. My kid also is struggling tracking assignments and so are thousands of kids in the system. PPs have all made legitimate criticisms of the workflow policies and tools MCPS uses.

According to DCUM’s posts, every kid in MCPS has ADHD or depression or was watching 6 younger siblings while the parents worked as Covid doctors/grocery store workers. The county’s stats don’t bear that out. The pandemic was a shock, but mild inconvenience for the majority of children whose parents are posting complaints here. Those kids either decided on their own to phone it on or their parents encouraged them to do so.

Ditto on the don’t be an ass. I’m a high school teacher and after Semester A made some school wide changes in how things were assigned and how Canvas had to look so that kids could find things. My own kid at another high school was struggling to turn things in on time because he never knew what was actually due when. I finally got his login to look through Canvas, and OMFG what a freaking unhelpful mess. Only 3 teachers had some sort of organization structure and regular pattern of assignments, only 2 had instructional materials posted. If a kid missed some verbal instruction during class time, they were immediately lost about what was going on. Build two or three classes in a row like that, they are so behind they can’t catch up, alcant figure it out on their own from the Canvas disaster, and are too embarrassed to ask. Hello, anxiety.

This year stank and I’m glad it’s over. If you and you kids made it through relatively unscathed or even more successful than before, good for you. But try counting your blessings instead of gloating that you are somehow better than everyone who had a less than successful year.

This year did suck but...I'm sorry but your high school students couldnt figure Canvas out after a semester? My elementary students figured out Canvas after a few weeks. It wasn't difficult to make Canvas easy to navigate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if MCPS kept Synergy broken for an entire school year to cover up how much grade inflation was going on. At least for my child, Canvas has a much different level of performance than Synergy communicates. His report card grades are fine but Canvas shows many assignments he failed but received 100% completion. You think this year was rough, what is going to happen next year? There is a price to pay when children are passed on without the skills they were supposed to learn this year.

Yes, MCPS kept an entirely third party platform "broken" for a year to cover up grade inflation..do you even hear how insane you are?