We’ve had 13 days of school. How’s the new grading policy going?

[Anonymous]

I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

Can you recommend a way to do that?

Let’s say you have 150 essays. Each will take 15 minutes to score. That’s 37.5 sustained hours of grading for that assignment alone.

If you divide the work by 10 days, including weekends, you are adding 3.75 hours of work to each day. If you give yourself the weekend off, you’re adding 4.7 hours of work to each work day.

You have one planning period. Maybe you can get 40 minutes of grading in.

And that’s just for that one assignment. That doesn’t include emails, data, meetings, planning lessons, meeting with students, running clubs, other assignments, or other duties as assigned.

So, considering the circumstances, can you offer a recommendation? How did you get this done in 10 days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No idea. Teachers are not posting assignments or grading them on time.

My kid is at Einstein and every teacher is posting assignments and grades EXCEPT for the AP Gov teacher. She’s not even posting assignments! At least help the kids see what they should be doing and how many points it’s worth. Other teachers are also posting comments about the graded assignments.

Guess the teacher isn’t posting assignments because then she would have to post the grades within 10 school days? I don’t understand how hard it is to post scantron grades every week. They haven’t even had any tests or projects yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers need 4 classes a day rather than 5. 3 plannning/grading/other stuff periods would make a big difference. This is how private schools do it

Not all private schools. Many are 5 classes plus advisory or 4 classes plus advisory. Many private schools also require HS teachers to coach.

The biggest difference for private school teachers would be classes not meeting every day. So that frees up grading time during the day. Plus the class sizes are smaller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blame the teachers. Business as usual. Pay no mind for the fact that they need like 80 hours to do a proper job. It's a churn and burn profession with no respect.

Actually, blame David Stein and MCEA. They’re the ones who agreed to the 10-day turnaround time.

How is it unreasonable to expect teachers to grade within 10 days so students know how they are doing and can work on the weaker areas? We had multiple teachers last year who didn't grade till the last minute and it was a nightmare. One never even finished grading and gave random grades. Teachers, staff and admin need to be held as accountable as students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No idea. Teachers are not posting assignments or grading them on time.

My kid is at Einstein and every teacher is posting assignments and grades EXCEPT for the AP Gov teacher. She’s not even posting assignments! At least help the kids see what they should be doing and how many points it’s worth. Other teachers are also posting comments about the graded assignments.

Guess the teacher isn’t posting assignments because then she would have to post the grades within 10 school days? I don’t understand how hard it is to post scantron grades every week. They haven’t even had any tests or projects yet.

It's very hit or miss there. The Spanish teacher we had was the worst with grading. Two history teachers we had were the absolute best in teaching and grading and communication. It's a principal issue.

They can also take multiple-choice tests online and have them autograded, so they only need to grade the written answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blame the teachers. Business as usual. Pay no mind for the fact that they need like 80 hours to do a proper job. It's a churn and burn profession with no respect.

Exactly. I spent most of my weekend grading. My family was out enjoying the fall weather while I sat at my dining room table for two days.

My morale is in the basement and I’m extremely worried about my health, but my grades are up to date.

Then, if something is going on quit or take a leave of absense.

I did quit. The job is impossible to do. It really is unsustainable.

I’m joining you. It really is impossible.

And the more you give, the more that’s expected of you. The entire system is built on teachers’ extra labor. And they know we’ll put in 5 extra hours on a Thursday and 8 on a Saturday because we have to.

Meanwhile, there’s a thread in the Jobs and Career section of this site about off-hour meetings, and it’s filled with people posting that they won’t work off hours without pay. And that idea is supported by others.

But we demand off-hours work of our teachers. Heck, teachers are “bad” and “hurting kids” if we don’t.

Most jobs are not 8 hours a day. Mine never has been and I often do paperwork and reports and notes in the evening and weekends although I get paid less by the county and worse benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blame the teachers. Business as usual. Pay no mind for the fact that they need like 80 hours to do a proper job. It's a churn and burn profession with no respect.

Exactly. I spent most of my weekend grading. My family was out enjoying the fall weather while I sat at my dining room table for two days.

My morale is in the basement and I’m extremely worried about my health, but my grades are up to date.

Then, if something is going on quit or take a leave of absense.

Should all of us quit or take a leave of absence? Because this isn’t merely MY problem. When you have 150 students and no time to grade, it becomes your weekend work. Every weekend. Most of my colleagues were working, too. And the health issues? It’s chronic stress and many of us deal with it.

Who do you think is replacing the teachers who take your advice?

You make it sound like real health issues. Stress is not. Some of us have real health issues. I wish it were only stress.

There are always new teachers.

1. Stress leads to: cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal diseases, tension, weakened immune systems, hormonal imbalances, anxiety, sleep disturbances, etc. I’m seeing specialists right now because of stress-induced trauma on my body. So don’t discredit stress. It’s extremely disrespectful to those of us who deal with a lot of it.

2. Who are these new teachers? Can you send them our way? Also, you’ll accept a revolving door of teachers for your child? Do you want skill and experience, or just any random body? For all that’s demanded of teachers, I find it fascinating that you find us so disposable and replaceable.

MCPS is mostly staffed.

You are disrespectful as many of us have equally hard jobs and REAL health issues. I've been seeing specialists for years and my issues are far worse than yours and genetic so I was born with them. I'm lucky I'm not dead yet. Want to trade?

[Anonymous]

This thread is so depressing. Nobody wants their taxes to go up, but without more money, how do we prevent schools from being overcrowded and class sizes from being too big to be manageable and teachers’ workloads from being twice as many hours as they’re paid for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blame the teachers. Business as usual. Pay no mind for the fact that they need like 80 hours to do a proper job. It's a churn and burn profession with no respect.

Exactly. I spent most of my weekend grading. My family was out enjoying the fall weather while I sat at my dining room table for two days.

My morale is in the basement and I’m extremely worried about my health, but my grades are up to date.

Then, if something is going on quit or take a leave of absense.

Should all of us quit or take a leave of absence? Because this isn’t merely MY problem. When you have 150 students and no time to grade, it becomes your weekend work. Every weekend. Most of my colleagues were working, too. And the health issues? It’s chronic stress and many of us deal with it.

Who do you think is replacing the teachers who take your advice?

You make it sound like real health issues. Stress is not. Some of us have real health issues. I wish it were only stress.

There are always new teachers.

1. Stress leads to: cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal diseases, tension, weakened immune systems, hormonal imbalances, anxiety, sleep disturbances, etc. I’m seeing specialists right now because of stress-induced trauma on my body. So don’t discredit stress. It’s extremely disrespectful to those of us who deal with a lot of it.

2. Who are these new teachers? Can you send them our way? Also, you’ll accept a revolving door of teachers for your child? Do you want skill and experience, or just any random body? For all that’s demanded of teachers, I find it fascinating that you find us so disposable and replaceable.

MCPS is mostly staffed.

You are disrespectful as many of us have equally hard jobs and REAL health issues. I've been seeing specialists for years and my issues are far worse than yours and genetic so I was born with them. I'm lucky I'm not dead yet. Want to trade?

Wow. I merely asked you not to be dismissive and disrespectful. You have no idea what REAL and chronic health issues I have that are exacerbated by my job. You fired back with disrespect, mockery and rudeness.

I’m sorry your life is rough. Sincerely. It must be to warrant that type of response.

[Anonymous]

I put aside 30 minutes each night to grade assignments as they are submitted. I know that means I'm "working for free" but it helps me keep things at a manageable level so I can get everything done in compliance with the new grading policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so depressing. Nobody wants their taxes to go up, but without more money, how do we prevent schools from being overcrowded and class sizes from being too big to be manageable and teachers’ workloads from being twice as many hours as they’re paid for?

We don’t. And so teachers continue to leave.

New teachers, often career changers, don’t last because they aren’t properly prepared for the job’s demands. So we have a rotating door of people, few of whom stay long enough to mentor new teachers.

We need to fix the profession to improve schools. Teachers’ days need to be less chaotic; more time has to be devoted to private planning and grading. Teachers’ nights and weekends must not be considered fair game; work/life balance must be respected. We need twice as many teachers to pull that off, and there aren’t enough people willing and able to do the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers need 4 classes a day rather than 5. 3 plannning/grading/other stuff periods would make a big difference. This is how private schools do it

5? When I worked in MCPS, I had 6 (this is including 45 minutes of pointless daily advisory)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so depressing. Nobody wants their taxes to go up, but without more money, how do we prevent schools from being overcrowded and class sizes from being too big to be manageable and teachers’ workloads from being twice as many hours as they’re paid for?

We don’t. And so teachers continue to leave.

New teachers, often career changers, don’t last because they aren’t properly prepared for the job’s demands. So we have a rotating door of people, few of whom stay long enough to mentor new teachers.

We need to fix the profession to improve schools. Teachers’ days need to be less chaotic; more time has to be devoted to private planning and grading. Teachers’ nights and weekends must not be considered fair game; work/life balance must be respected. We need twice as many teachers to pull that off, and there aren’t enough people willing and able to do the job.

If we doubled the number of teachers to complete the current workload, there would be more people willing to do the job, but we don’t have the money or the infrastructure for that. What can we do?

My kids (seniors now) have had just a few mediocre teachers, but the vast majority have been good and more than a few have been excellent. I can only think of one bad apple, and that one was terminated. These are overwhelmingly good, hardworking people who care about their students. I can see how many things teachers are expected to do that were not commonplace back when I was in school. The forms of discipline that were available to my teachers aren’t available to them. It seems like the job just keeps getting harder.

[Anonymous]

What??? DUDE!!? GIVE IT A MINUTE!