Your last line is so ridiculously offensive. I told my students (repeatedly) that their week-long assignment remains due on Monday, even if there is snow. I emailed that info. I put it on my website, directly linked to the school’s policy. Am I a jerk? We’re on a tight schedule. I have to get students ready for their AP exam. We can’t take long leisurely breaks, nor should we when we have modern technology to help us. If we fall behind and students aren’t prepared in May, would I also be a jerk in your eyes? |
Sounds like you provided sufficient notice, but others might not have provided such clear guidance. |
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Why wouldn't the assignment be due as schedule? Unless your power / internet went out, yes, assignments should still be due as scheduled.
Welcome to private school, OP. One of the things you are paying for is teachers who teach your kid to be responsible and on top of things. |
Not the OP, but I think most schools on block schedules have due dates based on when the class next meets. Fwiw, our recently sent out guidance specific to this snowstorm on how due dates will be handled. Presumably there have been some hiccups with some teachers/students, hence the updated guidance. |
DP. Students literally ask you questions even after you've just answered them. Ten times. Op's kid may well have had notice, just didn't process it. |
This is my guess, as well. I can say the same thing multiple times, write it on the board, put it on the class calendar, highlight it on the syllabus, make an announcement online, send an email, have students repeat the information back to me… and I’ll still have students accuse me of not telling them. For major assignments, I ALSO send a Google form that contains one question: “Here is the due date. Acknowledge below that you are aware of the due date.” I’ve also had parents sign it in the past. It’s a lot of extra steps, but it stops this problem in its tracks. |
OP makes it sound like her kid admits they knew the due date. They just thought that somehow the fact that there was a snow day after it was due (since it was presumably due at the start of the school day, before the snow day began) it didn't apply. Am I the only one who finds the whole "I did it, I just didn't bother to submit it" thing bogus? Hopefully the teacher will pull the google doc history to see if that's a lie. If it isn't, and it was done on Sunday with no revisions, I can see letting the kid off with a smaller penalty. |
Absolutely no chance that he did the work Sunday but didn't submit. He saw the forecast and knew, like everyone, that there would be no school Monday and thought he had a free pass to do nothing all weekend. Either OP is making that up to garner sympathy, or she is incredibly naive. |
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OP, at our Catholic high school teachers were brutal about this freshman year. Coming from public I thought it was way overboard and for whatever reason the following years almost all of my kids teachers were reasonable about things like this as long as there was communication. I don't know if this was due to luck of the draw with teachers or if it was intentional by the school to establish the ground rules.
Sometimes a small grade deficit like that can impact a quarter grade and if thats the case here maybe talk to the counsellor. Your only leg to stand on is that your kid is a freshman and the situation is new, but that may be enough. Otherwise take it as a learning moment and be glad the teacher is only taking 10% off. At our school that easily would have been a zero. |
Many people, including me, choose Catholic schools in part because of these higher expectations. They are a benefit, not a detriment. Yes, sometimes it takes a while for a new student to understand that deadlines are upheld, especially if the student came from a school system in which deadlines were merely suggestions. It can come across as rigid and unreasonable. It helps to remember that high school is a process and that students will learn to meet these higher demands. |
| OP here - thank you so much to the last two posters, I appreciate it. We are (maybe obviously) coming from public school where this would not occur because it wouldn’t be allowable. And also the teachers would be flexible. So it just would have been helpful for us to get an overall heads up about this. Something that maybe seems super obvious to those who have been in private is not necessarily so obvious to newcomers. We also chose a Catholic school because we do want him to be better prepared for college and all of those things. I absolutely believe in personal and academic responsibility. He absolutely made an error in judgement, and I understand this is part of the learning process. I also don’t think public school is right where some kids (mine included) are pretty consistently turning their work in on time and others aren’t at all and there is no differentiation. Just wish there was something between the super rigid and no rigidity at all, because that feels more like the real world to me. |
| Op, you should acknowledge that your kid probably was given notice (probably more than once and in multiple ways). He just didn't note it. |