Teachers and HS graded assignments

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are burned out. I can’t repeat this enough.

High school teachers are in front of 140-150 teenagers each day, dealing with unimaginable behaviors. When their planning period comes, they are now covering classes since we have a shortage of subs. I didn’t even get to eat lunch twice last week.

Planning lessons and grading work doesn’t happen at school anymore. There’s no time. It happens after we cook our family’s dinner. It happens after we put our own kids to bed. It happens all weekend, and sometimes we have to use our own leave to catch up.

It is unfortunate that students have to wait for feedback, or not get any at all. But it is equally unfortunate that we demand that our teachers sacrifice their own families to get work done.

There's no excuse for not letting teachers have a lunch period or taking over their planning periods regularly. No excuse. I don't know how MCPS allows this.

But I'm not sure why you are complaning about after hours work. My parents were teachers and they always were grading at home and on weekends. This is not new. This is how salaried jobs work. Everyone I know who has a salaried job does some amount of work after hours and on weekends no matter what that job is. If you don't want to take work home with you you you should choose a different profession.

Teachers are taking your advice. We are leaving in droves. MCPS used to be a place teachers flocked to. Now it has a dreadful reputation, and teachers look elsewhere.

Your parents had it easy compared to today’s teachers. I’ve been at this over 20 years. Teaching 2 decades ago was a BREEZE compared to now. And “taking home work” used to mean 1-2 hours of work a night. Now it means 3 or more, as well as full weekends dedicated to work. I pulled a 70 hour week last week.

Yes, working after hours is part of the job. But now we receive NO (and I repeat: NO) real time at work to get planning and grading done. If a task is essential to our job, we should receive some time to complete it.

My high school magnet kid has at least three hours of homework a night. I guess teachers should have less and just put all the pressure on the young teens.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I’m curious… how is that your takeaway? All I did was mention that some teachers are working 3+ hours at night, and you suggest we should do less and just pressure our students more. Why would we do that? What did I write that led you to this absurd conclusion?

I know my students are overburdened, as well. I take that into account as I plan. I work HARD, putting more on myself, to make sure my assignments are beneficial. I don’t give busy work. So why would you make a snarky comment suggesting I don’t care about students’ workload or well-being?

Perhaps this was a flippant comment from you. But here’s how it landed: I just put in 14-15 hours of work this weekend. I’m worn out, and Monday is just around the corner. I feel unappreciated and disrespected already, and you just piled more on. And we wonder why strong teachers like me are out the door.

I’m not that poster but let me apologize for her and thank you for your work. I angry about McPS that is putting teachers in this position. It’s not right that kids can go years with no substantive feedback, or weeks without getting a grade back (so they don’t realize they are missing concepts until they are already deep in a hole)—but I know there are a lot of teachers swimming against the tide to try to avoid this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are burned out. I can’t repeat this enough.

High school teachers are in front of 140-150 teenagers each day, dealing with unimaginable behaviors. When their planning period comes, they are now covering classes since we have a shortage of subs. I didn’t even get to eat lunch twice last week.

Planning lessons and grading work doesn’t happen at school anymore. There’s no time. It happens after we cook our family’s dinner. It happens after we put our own kids to bed. It happens all weekend, and sometimes we have to use our own leave to catch up.

It is unfortunate that students have to wait for feedback, or not get any at all. But it is equally unfortunate that we demand that our teachers sacrifice their own families to get work done.

There's no excuse for not letting teachers have a lunch period or taking over their planning periods regularly. No excuse. I don't know how MCPS allows this.

But I'm not sure why you are complaning about after hours work. My parents were teachers and they always were grading at home and on weekends. This is not new. This is how salaried jobs work. Everyone I know who has a salaried job does some amount of work after hours and on weekends no matter what that job is. If you don't want to take work home with you you you should choose a different profession.

Teachers are taking your advice. We are leaving in droves. MCPS used to be a place teachers flocked to. Now it has a dreadful reputation, and teachers look elsewhere.

Your parents had it easy compared to today’s teachers. I’ve been at this over 20 years. Teaching 2 decades ago was a BREEZE compared to now. And “taking home work” used to mean 1-2 hours of work a night. Now it means 3 or more, as well as full weekends dedicated to work. I pulled a 70 hour week last week.

Yes, working after hours is part of the job. But now we receive NO (and I repeat: NO) real time at work to get planning and grading done. If a task is essential to our job, we should receive some time to complete it.

My high school magnet kid has at least three hours of homework a night. I guess teachers should have less and just put all the pressure on the young teens.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I’m curious… how is that your takeaway? All I did was mention that some teachers are working 3+ hours at night, and you suggest we should do less and just pressure our students more. Why would we do that? What did I write that led you to this absurd conclusion?

I know my students are overburdened, as well. I take that into account as I plan. I work HARD, putting more on myself, to make sure my assignments are beneficial. I don’t give busy work. So why would you make a snarky comment suggesting I don’t care about students’ workload or well-being?

Perhaps this was a flippant comment from you. But here’s how it landed: I just put in 14-15 hours of work this weekend. I’m worn out, and Monday is just around the corner. I feel unappreciated and disrespected already, and you just piled more on. And we wonder why strong teachers like me are out the door.

My point was that you should be working at least as hard as you expect the kids too. My kid is definitely working more hours than you are. That sucks for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The MCPS grading policies are unworkable for teachers:

-No way to put “Z’s” in my MCPS even though this is required for missing assignments.
-9 assessments times 150 students is 1,350 basically every two months.
-I barely bother grading practice prep. I have no time to even look at it.
-Separate due dates and deadlines for to keep track of for students with extended time.
-Students who don’t show up for a few weeks are still expected to be offered to do the assignments. How the hell do they expect us to reteach and regrade without use our lunch “break”.

Are you saying that you don’t follow the policies and just screw over your students?

Those aren't necessarily rlated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are burned out. I can’t repeat this enough.

High school teachers are in front of 140-150 teenagers each day, dealing with unimaginable behaviors. When their planning period comes, they are now covering classes since we have a shortage of subs. I didn’t even get to eat lunch twice last week.

Planning lessons and grading work doesn’t happen at school anymore. There’s no time. It happens after we cook our family’s dinner. It happens after we put our own kids to bed. It happens all weekend, and sometimes we have to use our own leave to catch up.

It is unfortunate that students have to wait for feedback, or not get any at all. But it is equally unfortunate that we demand that our teachers sacrifice their own families to get work done.

There's no excuse for not letting teachers have a lunch period or taking over their planning periods regularly. No excuse. I don't know how MCPS allows this.

But I'm not sure why you are complaning about after hours work. My parents were teachers and they always were grading at home and on weekends. This is not new. This is how salaried jobs work. Everyone I know who has a salaried job does some amount of work after hours and on weekends no matter what that job is. If you don't want to take work home with you you you should choose a different profession.

Teachers are taking your advice. We are leaving in droves. MCPS used to be a place teachers flocked to. Now it has a dreadful reputation, and teachers look elsewhere.

Your parents had it easy compared to today’s teachers. I’ve been at this over 20 years. Teaching 2 decades ago was a BREEZE compared to now. And “taking home work” used to mean 1-2 hours of work a night. Now it means 3 or more, as well as full weekends dedicated to work. I pulled a 70 hour week last week.

Yes, working after hours is part of the job. But now we receive NO (and I repeat: NO) real time at work to get planning and grading done. If a task is essential to our job, we should receive some time to complete it.

My high school magnet kid has at least three hours of homework a night. I guess teachers should have less and just put all the pressure on the young teens.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I’m curious… how is that your takeaway? All I did was mention that some teachers are working 3+ hours at night, and you suggest we should do less and just pressure our students more. Why would we do that? What did I write that led you to this absurd conclusion?

I know my students are overburdened, as well. I take that into account as I plan. I work HARD, putting more on myself, to make sure my assignments are beneficial. I don’t give busy work. So why would you make a snarky comment suggesting I don’t care about students’ workload or well-being?

Perhaps this was a flippant comment from you. But here’s how it landed: I just put in 14-15 hours of work this weekend. I’m worn out, and Monday is just around the corner. I feel unappreciated and disrespected already, and you just piled more on. And we wonder why strong teachers like me are out the door.

My point was that you should be working at least as hard as you expect the kids too. My kid is definitely working more hours than you are. That sucks for her.

Really? Your child worked about 14-16 hours this weekend? Because that’s how much time I spent grading. Did you read where I wrote that above?

And does your child wake up at 4am to get about 2 hours of work in each day before the school day starts? And then work again in the evening?

I’m guessing I work FAR, FAR more than any of my students. Your attempt to shame me fell flat.

[Anonymous]

I don't know why that parent is comparing student work to teacher work. Apples to oranges.

If you want to complain about student workload that's one thing but you're dragging the wrong thing into it. I'm sure there are students who work 14-16 hours on the weekend to get their homework done but that's irrelevant.

Teachers deserve more planning time and more breaks during the day regardless of whether they are assigning 5 minutes of homework a night or 3 hours a night. It's inhumane to have teachers work through lunch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also this

All Tasks/Assessments: All assignments in the All
Tasks/Assessments category should add up to no fewer than nine
assignments, with feedback, each marking period.

Wow, this is definitely not what our experience has been. Particularly egregious is my 10th graders HS French class where they have had 4 all tasks total and only 2 have actually been graded (those were due the 2nd week of school). All of them are also NRT. My kid has no idea if/when the other 2 assignments will be graded (one was submitted over a month ago) or what their grade will be at the end of this marking period.

Also feels really weird to have a MP grade that is almost all based on the first 2 weeks of school!

Dealing with this this for a few of DD's classes this year. DD did not do well at the beginning of the year and has had no chance to make up for it because there have not been any all tasks assignments since the first few weeks. It should be easy for MCPS to check this on their grading system. I think they should just make teachers aware this is the policy and give them tools to create more assignments that are easy to grade or that are graded by computer like multiple choice tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know why that parent is comparing student work to teacher work. Apples to oranges.

If you want to complain about student workload that's one thing but you're dragging the wrong thing into it. I'm sure there are students who work 14-16 hours on the weekend to get their homework done but that's irrelevant.

Teachers deserve more planning time and more breaks during the day regardless of whether they are assigning 5 minutes of homework a night or 3 hours a night. It's inhumane to have teachers work through lunch

DP. I would add that it’s also wrong for a student to have that much work on the weekend, but I’m guessing that’s an exception and not a rule when it does occur.

My DD, who takes tons of AP classes, has had to do that only once or twice. She’d admit each time was the result of her own procrastination, completing an essay or project that she actually had weeks (and class time) to complete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are burned out. I can’t repeat this enough.

High school teachers are in front of 140-150 teenagers each day, dealing with unimaginable behaviors. When their planning period comes, they are now covering classes since we have a shortage of subs. I didn’t even get to eat lunch twice last week.

Planning lessons and grading work doesn’t happen at school anymore. There’s no time. It happens after we cook our family’s dinner. It happens after we put our own kids to bed. It happens all weekend, and sometimes we have to use our own leave to catch up.

It is unfortunate that students have to wait for feedback, or not get any at all. But it is equally unfortunate that we demand that our teachers sacrifice their own families to get work done.

There's no excuse for not letting teachers have a lunch period or taking over their planning periods regularly. No excuse. I don't know how MCPS allows this.

But I'm not sure why you are complaning about after hours work. My parents were teachers and they always were grading at home and on weekends. This is not new. This is how salaried jobs work. Everyone I know who has a salaried job does some amount of work after hours and on weekends no matter what that job is. If you don't want to take work home with you you you should choose a different profession.

Teachers are taking your advice. We are leaving in droves. MCPS used to be a place teachers flocked to. Now it has a dreadful reputation, and teachers look elsewhere.

Your parents had it easy compared to today’s teachers. I’ve been at this over 20 years. Teaching 2 decades ago was a BREEZE compared to now. And “taking home work” used to mean 1-2 hours of work a night. Now it means 3 or more, as well as full weekends dedicated to work. I pulled a 70 hour week last week.

Yes, working after hours is part of the job. But now we receive NO (and I repeat: NO) real time at work to get planning and grading done. If a task is essential to our job, we should receive some time to complete it.

My high school magnet kid has at least three hours of homework a night. I guess teachers should have less and just put all the pressure on the young teens.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I’m curious… how is that your takeaway? All I did was mention that some teachers are working 3+ hours at night, and you suggest we should do less and just pressure our students more. Why would we do that? What did I write that led you to this absurd conclusion?

I know my students are overburdened, as well. I take that into account as I plan. I work HARD, putting more on myself, to make sure my assignments are beneficial. I don’t give busy work. So why would you make a snarky comment suggesting I don’t care about students’ workload or well-being?

Perhaps this was a flippant comment from you. But here’s how it landed: I just put in 14-15 hours of work this weekend. I’m worn out, and Monday is just around the corner. I feel unappreciated and disrespected already, and you just piled more on. And we wonder why strong teachers like me are out the door.

My point was that you should be working at least as hard as you expect the kids too. My kid is definitely working more hours than you are. That sucks for her.

Really? Your child worked about 14-16 hours this weekend? Because that’s how much time I spent grading. Did you read where I wrote that above?

And does your child wake up at 4am to get about 2 hours of work in each day before the school day starts? And then work again in the evening?

I’m guessing I work FAR, FAR more than any of my students. Your attempt to shame me fell flat.

You’re wrong. I’m not trying to shame you, but my child works more than that routinely. Doesn’t work before school but regularly stays up until midnight or later and often works many more hours than 15 over weekends. Five hours a night is fairly average for a weeknight, more at weekends

[Anonymous]

Why would the fact that a random child has to work many more hours than the teacher - if this is even true - "shame" the teacher?

PP why the obsession with this? Your child is in a magnet program. They are supposed to have a lot of work and if your child feels overwhelmed they can drop some classes or go to their regular school. No one is forcing you to send your child there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would the fact that a random child has to work many more hours than the teacher - if this is even true - "shame" the teacher?

PP why the obsession with this? Your child is in a magnet program. They are supposed to have a lot of work and if your child feels overwhelmed they can drop some classes or go to their regular school. No one is forcing you to send your child there.

I’m wondering if this child is either mismanaging time or not placed in appropriate classes. This parent is reporting over 40 hours of homework a week, which seems extremely unusual.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would the fact that a random child has to work many more hours than the teacher - if this is even true - "shame" the teacher?

PP why the obsession with this? Your child is in a magnet program. They are supposed to have a lot of work and if your child feels overwhelmed they can drop some classes or go to their regular school. No one is forcing you to send your child there.

I’m wondering if this child is either mismanaging time or not placed in appropriate classes. This parent is reporting over 40 hours of homework a week, which seems extremely unusual.

I think it's possible for even an efficient kid to have that much homework depending on the classes they are taking. RMIB has very rigorous classes in all subjects for example and if you get a a few teachers who pile on the homework that's enough to create 3 hours of homework a night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are burned out. I can’t repeat this enough.

High school teachers are in front of 140-150 teenagers each day, dealing with unimaginable behaviors. When their planning period comes, they are now covering classes since we have a shortage of subs. I didn’t even get to eat lunch twice last week.

Planning lessons and grading work doesn’t happen at school anymore. There’s no time. It happens after we cook our family’s dinner. It happens after we put our own kids to bed. It happens all weekend, and sometimes we have to use our own leave to catch up.

It is unfortunate that students have to wait for feedback, or not get any at all. But it is equally unfortunate that we demand that our teachers sacrifice their own families to get work done.

There's no excuse for not letting teachers have a lunch period or taking over their planning periods regularly. No excuse. I don't know how MCPS allows this.

But I'm not sure why you are complaning about after hours work. My parents were teachers and they always were grading at home and on weekends. This is not new. This is how salaried jobs work. Everyone I know who has a salaried job does some amount of work after hours and on weekends no matter what that job is. If you don't want to take work home with you you you should choose a different profession.

Teachers are taking your advice. We are leaving in droves. MCPS used to be a place teachers flocked to. Now it has a dreadful reputation, and teachers look elsewhere.

Your parents had it easy compared to today’s teachers. I’ve been at this over 20 years. Teaching 2 decades ago was a BREEZE compared to now. And “taking home work” used to mean 1-2 hours of work a night. Now it means 3 or more, as well as full weekends dedicated to work. I pulled a 70 hour week last week.

Yes, working after hours is part of the job. But now we receive NO (and I repeat: NO) real time at work to get planning and grading done. If a task is essential to our job, we should receive some time to complete it.

My high school magnet kid has at least three hours of homework a night. I guess teachers should have less and just put all the pressure on the young teens.

I’m the PP you’re responding to. I’m curious… how is that your takeaway? All I did was mention that some teachers are working 3+ hours at night, and you suggest we should do less and just pressure our students more. Why would we do that? What did I write that led you to this absurd conclusion?

I know my students are overburdened, as well. I take that into account as I plan. I work HARD, putting more on myself, to make sure my assignments are beneficial. I don’t give busy work. So why would you make a snarky comment suggesting I don’t care about students’ workload or well-being?

Perhaps this was a flippant comment from you. But here’s how it landed: I just put in 14-15 hours of work this weekend. I’m worn out, and Monday is just around the corner. I feel unappreciated and disrespected already, and you just piled more on. And we wonder why strong teachers like me are out the door.

My point was that you should be working at least as hard as you expect the kids too. My kid is definitely working more hours than you are. That sucks for her.

Sorry, this is on you, not on teachers. You and your child chose her classes, extracurriculars, etc. If you have overreached, you need to make adjustments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do some teachers wait until the very end to assess students instead of doing it all quarter long? DC has one very good teacher who has had assessment grades throughout the quarter with no one grade worth too much. It's been very helpful for DC knowing how much they are mastering the content and adjusting their studying on the go.

DC has many more teachers who have had only had 1-2 small assessments and are having 1 last one huge one this week or next week so DC has no idea how they are doing and whether they are understanding the information. I thought no one assignment could comprise more than a certain percentage of the grade but here it is. Some are getting around it by breaking up these assessments into two parts so they are like a final exam that ends up counting 80% of the grade. How are they getting away with this?

A language course by any chance?

[Anonymous]

They should make all the admin sit in a room and just grade papers. I know they like the number to be falsely inflated so they can do it themselves and then deal with the parent calls so they will not have bs to hang over the teachers head and bully them about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would the fact that a random child has to work many more hours than the teacher - if this is even true - "shame" the teacher?

PP why the obsession with this? Your child is in a magnet program. They are supposed to have a lot of work and if your child feels overwhelmed they can drop some classes or go to their regular school. No one is forcing you to send your child there.

I’m wondering if this child is either mismanaging time or not placed in appropriate classes. This parent is reporting over 40 hours of homework a week, which seems extremely unusual.

I think it's possible for even an efficient kid to have that much homework depending on the classes they are taking. RMIB has very rigorous classes in all subjects for example and if you get a a few teachers who pile on the homework that's enough to create 3 hours of homework a night.

That’s correct and in some programs more than three hours. Teachers have control over this, so cry me a river at how stressed they are. The kids don’t have any control and if they want to do well they have to put hours into it.