HS Teachers Aren’t Keeping up on Grading

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has your child talked to the teacher in person before or after class?


I didn't think so. Come back after your child learns to talk to adults.

Yes, multiple times. The teacher dismisses the question and has also preemptively told the class not to approach her to discuss grades.
I regularly receive emails from other teachers praising my child’s maturity and hard work, so please stop trying to find an avenue to blame this on the student.

[Anonymous]

I'm spending my snow day grading the 230984573908457 late assignments kids handed me friday afternoon that I am required to accept. Some of them are from...October.

I grade work submitted on time within a few days of it being submitted. I grade late work when I get free time, which lately has been really hard to find. It takes twice as long to grade a bunch of one off late assignments as a stack of 30 on time assignments.

I'm still getting angry emails from parents saying that their kid has 14 missing assignments from this quarter but they swear they turned them in, and why am I not updating them? (Because I'm busy grading the on time work).

But if your child's teacher isn't grading even on time work? Go to the AP in charge of the department. Counselors aren't in supervisory roles. Department chairs certainly aren't in supervisory roles. The AP in charge can get the teacher a sub day if they need that to catch up on grading, or can put pressure on them to catch up if they're just not doing their job. The teachers who are doing their job fully are sick of the ones who aren't.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, why don't parents just out these high schools in DCUM? Maybe if it's all the same high school, then it's a systemic issue going on and it warrants full scale parent intervention. It's hard to tell whether this is just an isolated case at a particular high school or whether it's multiple high schools where this is occuring. It'll serve as a warning for future parents of that high school as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, why don't parents just out these high schools in DCUM? Maybe if it's all the same high school, then it's a systemic issue going on and it warrants full scale parent intervention. It's hard to tell whether this is just an isolated case at a particular high school or whether it's multiple high schools where this is occuring. It'll serve as a warning for future parents of that high school as well.

It's not.

There have been a handful of teachers or a department at every school I've taught at that works this way. In my current department, one teacher never inputs grades until the end, using the excuse that it's all "mastery grading" so he wants to wait until the end of the quarter to see where they are (he's just a bad teacher). In the classroom next door to me, the foreign language teacher just gives everyone As at the end of the quarter, so the kids don't care that they have no grades, they know if they turned in an assignment no matter how poorly done, they'll get As. The 11th grade English department gives one summative every quarter (despite being "required" to give 2). They grade it the last day of the quarter, every quarter. How they get away with it is beyond me.

The majority of teachers are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing and killing themselves to get it done, but a few (10%?) bad apples give all teachers a bad name.

[Anonymous]

When we started at Lake Braddock, I'm assuming the teachers were required to send weekly grade reports. We've since had many changes at the principal level and those reports are gone.

Slowly but surely the longer those have been gone, the longer things take to be graded. It helped hold us all accountable to reviewing grades as parents, and entering as teachers.

One of my kids had a teacher her senior year not input a summative that was taken the week before the semester ended. Had it been entered, her semester grade which was going to colleges would have been a letter grade higher. She wasn't asking for a favor, just asked to have it entered. Teacher declined. Teacher entered it the day after she finalized grades. My kid was a senior, this was an AP class, the teacher knew what this meant. Test was given well before semester break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm spending my snow day grading the 230984573908457 late assignments kids handed me friday afternoon that I am required to accept. Some of them are from...October.

I grade work submitted on time within a few days of it being submitted. I grade late work when I get free time, which lately has been really hard to find. It takes twice as long to grade a bunch of one off late assignments as a stack of 30 on time assignments.

I'm still getting angry emails from parents saying that their kid has 14 missing assignments from this quarter but they swear they turned them in, and why am I not updating them? (Because I'm busy grading the on time work).

But if your child's teacher isn't grading even on time work? Go to the AP in charge of the department. Counselors aren't in supervisory roles. Department chairs certainly aren't in supervisory roles. The AP in charge can get the teacher a sub day if they need that to catch up on grading, or can put pressure on them to catch up if they're just not doing their job. The teachers who are doing their job fully are sick of the ones who aren't.

DP and I definitely agree with your last paragraph. I’m grading seven days a week (and that’s not an exaggeration). I’m livid that there are teachers who don’t grade at all. They make my life harder; I have the same students and I have to hear the complaints, knowing I can do nothing about it. And no, it isn’t fair that students do work that isn’t reviewed.

But I’m also livid that I’m grading seven days a week. Those shouldn’t be my choices: work to contract and disappoint my students vs. giving up my outside obligations to grade.

[Anonymous]

Another reason we switched to private

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has your child talked to the teacher in person before or after class?


I didn't think so. Come back after your child learns to talk to adults.

Yes, multiple times. The teacher dismisses the question and has also preemptively told the class not to approach her to discuss grades.
I regularly receive emails from other teachers praising my child’s maturity and hard work, so please stop trying to find an avenue to blame this on the student.

+1 same

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another reason we switched to private

Has it been better? What do you think the difference is?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm spending my snow day grading the 230984573908457 late assignments kids handed me friday afternoon that I am required to accept. Some of them are from...October.

I grade work submitted on time within a few days of it being submitted. I grade late work when I get free time, which lately has been really hard to find. It takes twice as long to grade a bunch of one off late assignments as a stack of 30 on time assignments.

I'm still getting angry emails from parents saying that their kid has 14 missing assignments from this quarter but they swear they turned them in, and why am I not updating them? (Because I'm busy grading the on time work).

But if your child's teacher isn't grading even on time work? Go to the AP in charge of the department. Counselors aren't in supervisory roles. Department chairs certainly aren't in supervisory roles. The AP in charge can get the teacher a sub day if they need that to catch up on grading, or can put pressure on them to catch up if they're just not doing their job. The teachers who are doing their job fully are sick of the ones who aren't.

DP and I definitely agree with your last paragraph. I’m grading seven days a week (and that’s not an exaggeration). I’m livid that there are teachers who don’t grade at all. They make my life harder; I have the same students and I have to hear the complaints, knowing I can do nothing about it. And no, it isn’t fair that students do work that isn’t reviewed.

But I’m also livid that I’m grading seven days a week. Those shouldn’t be my choices: work to contract and disappoint my students vs. giving up my outside obligations to grade.

I’m tired too. It’s flat out impossible to do this job well in under 50 hours a week. I refuse to half ass a job, so I’m giving it 50 hours…but next year’s intention form is weighing heavy on the back of my mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are people complaining about nothing graded since Dec. 17th? That was the Wed before winter break. Maybe the teacher didnt want to sacrifice family time to grade over break. Maybe they input grades at the end of the month so that is this week.

If parents want grades reported faster, complain about how many meetings teachers have to attend and all the extra duties they have to do like supervision.

Nov 17 for us. What’s the justification for that?

Because they don't want to - it's the truth at least.

[Anonymous]

Teachers - what's different now? What can we reach out to the superintendent about to help you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child has multiple teachers who haven’t graded things since November. My child emails them multiple times giving three to five days space to honor them juggling multiple tasks (I have seen child’s emails). However, now that it’s end of quarter there are multiple items that have still yet to be resolved in multiple classes. The teachers tell students they have plenty of time don’t worry, but this is inadequate. It’s undue stress on the student.

Should I contact the principal or counselor if the teachers aren’t keeping up with grade book and it’s been more than 8 weeks or 6 weeks? What is the proper escalation process when teachers say students must advocate for themselves and then they ignore the student actively requesting a retake or asking for access to complete an assignment they need to complete?

Yes. You should notify the principal, counselor, abd school board rep. The teachers are over-extended. They also have no accountability, and no one is advocating for a better system. You need to speak up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are people complaining about nothing graded since Dec. 17th? That was the Wed before winter break. Maybe the teacher didnt want to sacrifice family time to grade over break. Maybe they input grades at the end of the month so that is this week.

If parents want grades reported faster, complain about how many meetings teachers have to attend and all the extra duties they have to do like supervision.

Are you serious? No. That was over a month ago. It’s unacceptable. The poor teachers are over-extended. Leadership needs to support them and have accountability for their actions.

[Anonymous]

OP. I posted this, forgot and just looked to see if anyone had suggestions. I didn’t realize so many opinions would surface on this topic. Thanks for insights. It was for original assignments. My child talked with teachers, sent multiple emails and just wants to get grades to get feedback on assignments. I didn’t intervene because it’s not how I like to work as a parent. However, it’s a disappointing high school experience when you are trying to empower your child to lead and it results in no change in action.

I agree. Work is tremendous for teachers. I hope they are given more support because right now it’s counter learning culture and insufficient. I didn’t realize AP was proper escalation route so that’s helpful. Thank you for that recommendation.