So over APS

[Anonymous]

Do APS elementary schools use ParentVUE for ongoing grade updates? I’m an APS elem teacher and my kids attend a different APS elementary school and ParentVUE at the elementary level at both schools is not updated daily with grades and assignments like it is for my middle and high school kids. So unless the OP was following canvas on their students iPad or as a parent observer, without teacher contact how would they know?

Also my class frequently does not get to some canvas assignments I make or get to them when I originally plan to use them and I don’t use canvas grade book so it would look to parents like there is lots of late assignments but they aren’t. But regardless after a day or 2 of no work I’d be in touch with parents to follow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do APS elementary schools use ParentVUE for ongoing grade updates? I’m an APS elem teacher and my kids attend a different APS elementary school and ParentVUE at the elementary level at both schools is not updated daily with grades and assignments like it is for my middle and high school kids. So unless the OP was following canvas on their students iPad or as a parent observer, without teacher contact how would they know?

Also my class frequently does not get to some canvas assignments I make or get to them when I originally plan to use them and I don’t use canvas grade book so it would look to parents like there is lots of late assignments but they aren’t. But regardless after a day or 2 of no work I’d be in touch with parents to follow up.

Thank you - as the parent of an elementary student, parentvue seems to only list my child’s quarterly grade report and attendance. We get at least a dozen assignment related notifications every day through canvas, and we eventually started tuning them out when our kid showed us he understood where to find and how to submit assignments. If I were to suggest one useful upgrade to canvas, it would be a special notification that gets issued whenever an assignment receives the designation of “missing.” Make it a different color. Make sure it auto-generates an annoying “warning” email every day until the status changes. Much more useful to me as a parent than receiving a notification every time a new assignment is created.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do APS elementary schools use ParentVUE for ongoing grade updates? I’m an APS elem teacher and my kids attend a different APS elementary school and ParentVUE at the elementary level at both schools is not updated daily with grades and assignments like it is for my middle and high school kids. So unless the OP was following canvas on their students iPad or as a parent observer, without teacher contact how would they know?

Also my class frequently does not get to some canvas assignments I make or get to them when I originally plan to use them and I don’t use canvas grade book so it would look to parents like there is lots of late assignments but they aren’t. But regardless after a day or 2 of no work I’d be in touch with parents to follow up.

I think most teachers would, and do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also think, at least at the elementary level, it’s crazy that a kid has as many as 10 things to submit in one day and we’re expected to micro manage from home all of that. In normal times, this would have been ordinary class work that parents never saw. It’s not homework. If you see your kid doing his work, if he has a demonstrated ability to manage the technology, why would you think you needed to micro manage in canvas? Until your kid has burned you by stealthfully disengaging with the submission process , it may be difficult to appreciate how irritating it is to learn your kid’s teacher is perfectly happy to just ignore the fact that all assignments are missing. Why should I be the only one who cares if my kid submitted a single assignment over a 3 month period? Even if I’m the worst mother ever, he’s entitled to an education and he deserves a teacher who will at least try to get to the bottom of the complete absence of any submitted course work for an entire quarter. Doesn’t matter that some moms check parentvue or canvas more regularly. Doesn’t matter how easy it is. That’s obviously not happening in the house of the kid who is missing 100 assignments, and that should be eye-poppingly clear to the teacher.

People here are so sympathetic about the poor immigrant families who don't have time to help their kids; but if you're not one of them, you're an incompetent parent with incompetent, irresponsible, lying children.
You are absolutely right - as a parent, we should be able to expect that the teacher would contact us if there's a problem they aren't able to resolve with the student. I wish people would make up their minds: are we supposed to let our children develop independence and responsibility and be more hands-off? or are we supposed to be micro-managing until they're out of high school?

Two things. First, your initial point underscores that privileged people, whether they know it or not, place low expectations on anyone outside of their social class. Second, I’d take with a grain of salt any Arlington parent’s claim that they were totally hands off about supervising their kids.

I completely disagree with your first statement. Don't even see how you extrapolated that out of what I wrote.
But I agree with your second statement. Hence the snark in my comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also think, at least at the elementary level, it’s crazy that a kid has as many as 10 things to submit in one day and we’re expected to micro manage from home all of that. In normal times, this would have been ordinary class work that parents never saw. It’s not homework. If you see your kid doing his work, if he has a demonstrated ability to manage the technology, why would you think you needed to micro manage in canvas? Until your kid has burned you by stealthfully disengaging with the submission process , it may be difficult to appreciate how irritating it is to learn your kid’s teacher is perfectly happy to just ignore the fact that all assignments are missing. Why should I be the only one who cares if my kid submitted a single assignment over a 3 month period? Even if I’m the worst mother ever, he’s entitled to an education and he deserves a teacher who will at least try to get to the bottom of the complete absence of any submitted course work for an entire quarter. Doesn’t matter that some moms check parentvue or canvas more regularly. Doesn’t matter how easy it is. That’s obviously not happening in the house of the kid who is missing 100 assignments, and that should be eye-poppingly clear to the teacher.

People here are so sympathetic about the poor immigrant families who don't have time to help their kids; but if you're not one of them, you're an incompetent parent with incompetent, irresponsible, lying children.
You are absolutely right - as a parent, we should be able to expect that the teacher would contact us if there's a problem they aren't able to resolve with the student. I wish people would make up their minds: are we supposed to let our children develop independence and responsibility and be more hands-off? or are we supposed to be micro-managing until they're out of high school?

I do wonder if this mom is one of the people on here that has been complaining that their kid hasn't done anything in class all year and hasn't learned anything, because if so I guess this explains why -- they were not actually following along in class and doing the work the other kids were doing.

But honestly, I would expect this teacher to try to get in touch with the parent/s. If a whole week of content has gone by, in elementary school, with no submissions from a kid and spotty attendance as well (I'm assuming?), then I would expect attempts at communication. It's weird to me that you weren't contacted, especially if you kid was not actually "appearing" in class. I think the schools are required to have contact in those situations. And you should have been receiving absentee reports from the school this whole time, like same- or next-day reports of absenteeism. Could there be a problem here where maybe dad was listed as contact and was not informing you of them and/or other school communications? I frankly have trouble believing that your kid in an Arlington school went 3 months without turning any except 1 assignment in and no teachers or administrators attempted to call you to warn you about the problem and to try to get more participation out of your kid. I dunno, sounds weird. But I agree, if true, bad. (Parents still should have been checking in on ParentVue and not expecting their elementary school kid to handle their education on their own, but even so, school should be taking steps as well.)

No, I'm not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do APS elementary schools use ParentVUE for ongoing grade updates? I’m an APS elem teacher and my kids attend a different APS elementary school and ParentVUE at the elementary level at both schools is not updated daily with grades and assignments like it is for my middle and high school kids. So unless the OP was following canvas on their students iPad or as a parent observer, without teacher contact how would they know?

Also my class frequently does not get to some canvas assignments I make or get to them when I originally plan to use them and I don’t use canvas grade book so it would look to parents like there is lots of late assignments but they aren’t. But regardless after a day or 2 of no work I’d be in touch with parents to follow up.

+1 on all the above.

[Anonymous]

OP I totally agree with you.

APS is a disgrace. The lack of leadership displayed during the pandemic will cause lasting negative outcomes for students. If you're crazy enough to be defending APS on here you're either completely out of your mind, fine with a below-average performance from a school, or a teacher.

My biggest problem is that APS is fine with the status quo. They are lazy - they have literally referred to situations as being "too hard". There is no leadership, NONE! They think the lowest learner in the room should dictate the entire classroom education, that's their version of equity, which is completely wrong. They don't communicate proactively. They lie. They are not transparent. They hire a bunch of fraudulent administrators and the central office is bloated with unnecessary admin roles. APS is going to be the new ACPS. So many families are going private - and the sad thing is that they are the ones that stand up and advocate on behalf of students. They ask the hard questions and challenge APS and they are over it now and leaving. APS is going to get a lot worse over the next few years. Watch and see. I hope all you suckers defending APS enjoy your child's future of mediocrity. Because that's what you're going to get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I totally agree with you.

APS is a disgrace. The lack of leadership displayed during the pandemic will cause lasting negative outcomes for students. If you're crazy enough to be defending APS on here you're either completely out of your mind, fine with a below-average performance from a school, or a teacher.

My biggest problem is that APS is fine with the status quo. They are lazy - they have literally referred to situations as being "too hard". There is no leadership, NONE! They think the lowest learner in the room should dictate the entire classroom education, that's their version of equity, which is completely wrong. They don't communicate proactively. They lie. They are not transparent. They hire a bunch of fraudulent administrators and the central office is bloated with unnecessary admin roles. APS is going to be the new ACPS. So many families are going private - and the sad thing is that they are the ones that stand up and advocate on behalf of students. They ask the hard questions and challenge APS and they are over it now and leaving. APS is going to get a lot worse over the next few years. Watch and see. I hope all you suckers defending APS enjoy your child's future of mediocrity. Because that's what you're going to get.

- The Mistress of Doom and Gloom has Spoken (You may now return to your pathetic little lives)

PS-(S)he resides in Arlington where all of the schools and teachers are below-average. (As evidenced by the million dollar homes only the peons can afford)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do APS elementary schools use ParentVUE for ongoing grade updates? I’m an APS elem teacher and my kids attend a different APS elementary school and ParentVUE at the elementary level at both schools is not updated daily with grades and assignments like it is for my middle and high school kids. So unless the OP was following canvas on their students iPad or as a parent observer, without teacher contact how would they know?

Also my class frequently does not get to some canvas assignments I make or get to them when I originally plan to use them and I don’t use canvas grade book so it would look to parents like there is lots of late assignments but they aren’t. But regardless after a day or 2 of no work I’d be in touch with parents to follow up.

Thank you - as the parent of an elementary student, parentvue seems to only list my child’s quarterly grade report and attendance. We get at least a dozen assignment related notifications every day through canvas, and we eventually started tuning them out when our kid showed us he understood where to find and how to submit assignments. If I were to suggest one useful upgrade to canvas, it would be a special notification that gets issued whenever an assignment receives the designation of “missing.” Make it a different color. Make sure it auto-generates an annoying “warning” email every day until the status changes. Much more useful to me as a parent than receiving a notification every time a new assignment is created.

This is why it sucks that APS gave out ipads instead of laptops. The web browser version of canvas is so much easier. Missing stuff gets a MISSING stamp. There is a feed back and to do area that lists missing assignments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I totally agree with you.

APS is a disgrace. The lack of leadership displayed during the pandemic will cause lasting negative outcomes for students. If you're crazy enough to be defending APS on here you're either completely out of your mind, fine with a below-average performance from a school, or a teacher.

My biggest problem is that APS is fine with the status quo. They are lazy - they have literally referred to situations as being "too hard". There is no leadership, NONE! They think the lowest learner in the room should dictate the entire classroom education, that's their version of equity, which is completely wrong. They don't communicate proactively. They lie. They are not transparent. They hire a bunch of fraudulent administrators and the central office is bloated with unnecessary admin roles. APS is going to be the new ACPS. So many families are going private - and the sad thing is that they are the ones that stand up and advocate on behalf of students. They ask the hard questions and challenge APS and they are over it now and leaving. APS is going to get a lot worse over the next few years. Watch and see. I hope all you suckers defending APS enjoy your child's future of mediocrity. Because that's what you're going to get.

- The Mistress of Doom and Gloom has Spoken (You may now return to your pathetic little lives)

PS-(S)he resides in Arlington where all of the schools and teachers are below-average. (As evidenced by the million dollar homes only the peons can afford)

Honey, barely anyone in those homes sends their kids to APS, come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do APS elementary schools use ParentVUE for ongoing grade updates? I’m an APS elem teacher and my kids attend a different APS elementary school and ParentVUE at the elementary level at both schools is not updated daily with grades and assignments like it is for my middle and high school kids. So unless the OP was following canvas on their students iPad or as a parent observer, without teacher contact how would they know?

Also my class frequently does not get to some canvas assignments I make or get to them when I originally plan to use them and I don’t use canvas grade book so it would look to parents like there is lots of late assignments but they aren’t. But regardless after a day or 2 of no work I’d be in touch with parents to follow up.

Thank you - as the parent of an elementary student, parentvue seems to only list my child’s quarterly grade report and attendance. We get at least a dozen assignment related notifications every day through canvas, and we eventually started tuning them out when our kid showed us he understood where to find and how to submit assignments. If I were to suggest one useful upgrade to canvas, it would be a special notification that gets issued whenever an assignment receives the designation of “missing.” Make it a different color. Make sure it auto-generates an annoying “warning” email every day until the status changes. Much more useful to me as a parent than receiving a notification every time a new assignment is created.

This is why it sucks that APS gave out ipads instead of laptops. The web browser version of canvas is so much easier. Missing stuff gets a MISSING stamp. There is a feed back and to do area that lists missing assignments.

I'd agree with that; however, (1) elementary kids don't need laptops; (2) Canvas is still a challenge for older students on laptops because of the inconsistency in use by teachers - and no, not all teachers get Parent/StudenVue updated weekly. And even if they do, why should there be two places to have to check for grades and missing/late assignments?

[Anonymous]

You can use the web browser version of Canvas with ipads. Just go through Myaccess and select "canvas".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I totally agree with you.

APS is a disgrace. The lack of leadership displayed during the pandemic will cause lasting negative outcomes for students. If you're crazy enough to be defending APS on here you're either completely out of your mind, fine with a below-average performance from a school, or a teacher.

My biggest problem is that APS is fine with the status quo. They are lazy - they have literally referred to situations as being "too hard". There is no leadership, NONE! They think the lowest learner in the room should dictate the entire classroom education, that's their version of equity, which is completely wrong. They don't communicate proactively. They lie. They are not transparent. They hire a bunch of fraudulent administrators and the central office is bloated with unnecessary admin roles. APS is going to be the new ACPS. So many families are going private - and the sad thing is that they are the ones that stand up and advocate on behalf of students. They ask the hard questions and challenge APS and they are over it now and leaving. APS is going to get a lot worse over the next few years. Watch and see. I hope all you suckers defending APS enjoy your child's future of mediocrity. Because that's what you're going to get.

- The Mistress of Doom and Gloom has Spoken (You may now return to your pathetic little lives)

PS-(S)he resides in Arlington where all of the schools and teachers are below-average. (As evidenced by the million dollar homes only the peons can afford)

Honey, barely anyone in those homes sends their kids to APS, come on.

The houses in my north arlington neighborhood regularly sell for 1 million or more and nearly everyone here sends their kids to APS. Our house isn't even recently built or updated and it's valued north of 900K.

But to address PP before this, not sure what that angry lady's problem is. If anything it seems to me like the people who have been MOST upset about the way this last year has gone are the people who are newest to APS and have worked in the APS system the least, haven't volunteered on committees, don't really know how APS works. You're saying BEWARE because those people are full of complaints and are fleeing to privates? GOOD! Don't let the door hit you etc. You guys want to come to School Board meetings having trained your kids what to say and disrespect teachers and other speakers at the meeting and then get huffy when you don't automatically get your way? Just go!

For the folks who aren't like that but have had a really bad year: My experience with APS has not reflected what your school year has been like this year. I don't know whether it's your school or just this terrible year. I do think next year will be better; all signs point to yes. Good luck and I hope you get through this.

[Anonymous]

Next year will be better. And parents can play a role in it.

Funnel all of that energy towards helping your school - volunteer, engage, support.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Next year will be better. And parents can play a role in it.

Funnel all of that energy towards helping your school - volunteer, engage, support.

+1 even just shifting your attitude to not automatically assuming the worst would help.