FCPS forbids student showing homework to another student?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think an F for the assignment would be warranted, even though it was unintentional due to her age. An F for the semester is crazy.

It's a little unclear what the actual consequence was here. Did DD get a zero on the assignment, which caused her to fail the semester? Just an F on the assignment, and OP's wording is off? Or were they legitimately flunked for the entire semester, with no ability to make up or dig themselves out. Maybe OP can clear that up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think an F for the assignment would be warranted, even though it was unintentional due to her age. An F for the semester is crazy.

+1 from an FCPS teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is about HOMEWORK? My view is that the action the school took is over the top. It is one thing to cheat on a test by copying someone else’s work. But HOMEWORK? The purpose of homework is to gain practice in learning certain skills and concepts. If someone copied your daughter’s homework, the one that loses is the person who copied it.

And, as for the Madison HS honor code - maybe I missed it, but where does it address HOMEWORK?

I would begin by asking the school what the purpose of homework is. Is it graded? If it is, that is interesting because I would wonder how the school knows WHO completed the homework. If the parent helped the student, then who is really getting the grade - the parent or the student? How can the school know, for certain, if the student actually completed the homework independently, thus earning the grade he/she is given.

Yes, sometimes in MS and HS homework counts for a chunk of the grade. Think less nightly math homework, and more a math project. For example, in Algebra last year, my DC was given lists of equations that became lines, and then based on this underlying pattern, had to add more lines of his own, come up with the equations for those lines, and create a picture that he colored in. A great, creative way to learn this concept. They were given a couple weeks to do this-- at home, and it carried about as much weight as a unit test. If OP's child had completed the homework a week out, it sounds like it falls more into this long term project category and less into routine nightly homework, which is usually just checked for completion.

And no, the school probably had no way of know whether he did this himself (he did). The same way that they have no way of knowing whether he really practiced his instrument when I sign practice logs and he turns them in. Hence the honor code. But if I had done the work for him, then he wouldn't have learned the concept, and would have bombed the unit test. So in the end, there would still have been a consequence.

I would say that the assignment was a creative way to reinforce a concept, but to assign it as homework and to assign a grade equivalent to a unit test, is the issue.
If a student does not complete homework then the consequence is that he/she bombs the test, as you said. So, why assign a grade to the homework? Just like if a student does not practice his instrument, he will not learn to play accurately - the consequence of not practicing. And his grade for performance, in class, would reflect that.
I am not against homework. I think short, meaningful assignments that reinforce skills are good for students. But, grading homework is totally inappropriate. Homework should give students an opportunity to practice, and even sometimes fail, so that the teacher knows what he/she needs to help a student with. If a student does not fully understand something, the homework will reflect that. But, when homework is graded, a student seeks assistance from his/her parents who may, or usually, may not, help the student with understanding of that concept. Homework has instead become an extension of the school day and a time for parents to show their knowledge of the school work their kids should be doing.

[Anonymous]

OP here. What I got was a report card as it stands today. It is an F for the quarter? (If I interpret it right). Zero points for that assignment, and various points for the other assignments during this quarter.

I thought because the quarter has not ended so there is no final grade yet? But the F obvious did not considered all the other assignment.

I am not sure, and I don't know how DD can recover from that F even if she get A+ for the remainder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. What I got was a report card as it stands today. It is an F for the quarter? (If I interpret it right). Zero points for that assignment, and various points for the other assignments during this quarter.

I thought because the quarter has not ended so there is no final grade yet? But the F obvious did not considered all the other assignment.

I am not sure, and I don't know how DD can recover from that F even if she get A+ for the remainder.

I would immediately schedule a conference with the teacher. This is another issue - assigning a ZERO for work like this. It is defeating to a student who otherwise works hard to learn.
And, if the F was assigned because of primarily homework assignments, I would be angry.
The questions I would ask -
How is my child performing in the classroom? On tests? On quizzes?
How does my child participate?
Should a grade in this class reflect my child’s achievement - her understanding of skills and concepts taught and learned?
Is an F a true reflection of my child’s ACHIEVEMENT this quarter, of is it more a reflection of the punishment she received as a result of this homework assignment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. What I got was a report card as it stands today. It is an F for the quarter? (If I interpret it right). Zero points for that assignment, and various points for the other assignments during this quarter.

I thought because the quarter has not ended so there is no final grade yet? But the F obvious did not considered all the other assignment.

I am not sure, and I don't know how DD can recover from that F even if she get A+ for the remainder.

I would immediately schedule a conference with the teacher. This is another issue - assigning a ZERO for work like this. It is defeating to a student who otherwise works hard to learn.
And, if the F was assigned because of primarily homework assignments, I would be angry.
The questions I would ask -
How is my child performing in the classroom? On tests? On quizzes?
How does my child participate?
Should a grade in this class reflect my child’s achievement - her understanding of skills and concepts taught and learned?
Is an F a true reflection of my child’s ACHIEVEMENT this quarter, of is it more a reflection of the punishment she received as a result of this homework assignment?

OP here. I already had a conference with the teacher and the AP, that was how I learned about the rule "somewhere" and their claim that this was a "HW test", even though the students thought it was a HW assignment, and the report card clearly marked it as "Homework". They said it is a result of the honor code violation and the need to teach DD a lesson so that she can learn from the lesson.

This was also the reason why I asked whether there is such a rule, so that I can understand the situation better and understand their perspective.

If I need to pursue further, it will have to be with the principal. But if I do that, it may harm my DD further.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. What I got was a report card as it stands today. It is an F for the quarter? (If I interpret it right). Zero points for that assignment, and various points for the other assignments during this quarter.

I thought because the quarter has not ended so there is no final grade yet? But the F obvious did not considered all the other assignment.

I am not sure, and I don't know how DD can recover from that F even if she get A+ for the remainder.

I would immediately schedule a conference with the teacher. This is another issue - assigning a ZERO for work like this. It is defeating to a student who otherwise works hard to learn.
And, if the F was assigned because of primarily homework assignments, I would be angry.
The questions I would ask -
How is my child performing in the classroom? On tests? On quizzes?
How does my child participate?
Should a grade in this class reflect my child’s achievement - her understanding of skills and concepts taught and learned?
Is an F a true reflection of my child’s ACHIEVEMENT this quarter, of is it more a reflection of the punishment she received as a result of this homework assignment?

Well, hold up just a minute.

This is a junior in high school.

If I were the teacher, I'd be much more receptive of the student approaching me on this issue than a parent. Especially if the parent were claiming innocence on behalf of her 11th grader.

OP, as a parent, I think this totally stinks. But it's your daughter's problem, and your job is not to take care of it for her at this point. You can back her up, though. I really wish my own mom had helped me learn to stand up to myself and talk to teachers BEFORE heading away to college. It's a great skill. Many of my classmates were able to talk to and negotiate to raise their grades with our professors as adults, and I always felt incompetent/fearful to do so.

[Anonymous]

12:17, DD did explain to the teacher and asked for forgiveness. It went nowhere. Teacher said she will contact me, instead she made the referral to AP before I was even notified. AP promptly gave DD a warning, even before the teacher would talk to me.

I pointed out the lack of process, they apologized and admitted that the process should have been better.

I need to pick up my DD from the SAT exam. I will come back to this forum tonight. Thanks everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. What I got was a report card as it stands today. It is an F for the quarter? (If I interpret it right). Zero points for that assignment, and various points for the other assignments during this quarter.

I thought because the quarter has not ended so there is no final grade yet? But the F obvious did not considered all the other assignment.

I am not sure, and I don't know how DD can recover from that F even if she get A+ for the remainder.

That sounds right to me. She got a zero for the assignment. And because the quarter is only a couple of weeks old, there aren't enough other assignments to balance it out right now (my kids have only 2-3 grades in some classes, and DS got a 60 on a quiz based on a homework reading assignment that brought his grade down to a C- until he does the retake. And gets more grades in). But she was not actually flunked for the quarter, let alone the semester. More grades will come in, and unless she is really struggling in the class, she will ultimately not fail the quarter, let alone the semester. And HSs report and average GPAs by the final grade at the end of the year anyway, not broken down by quarters or semesters, so the zero will ultimately get lost in many, many other grades. It will probably not even pull her down a letter grade, unless she is very borderline to begin with.

In the meantime, your daughter should do some self advocacy here. There is nothing to be lost by her approaching the teacher, apologizing for screwing up, and asking if it is possible to do extra credit to make up for some of the lost ground. If she has been a good student who has not been in trouble up to this point, she might get a yes. But in HS, she needs to take responsibility for talking to the teacher about this. You should not contact the teacher and intercede.

[Anonymous]

Yes it's just that this might be one of only a few grades for the quarter so far and it may have been heavily weighted due to being a test.

It's kind of shocking a junior in high school would not know to not show a friend a completed homework assignment that was not due for a week/the friend hadnt done. My suspicion is that the friend asked to borrow it to look at for her assignment, your DD felt too pressured/embarrassed to say no, handed it over and then, fait accompli, became guilty of plagiarism. You should probe that idea to see if it holds water. Let her know she can protect her work as her property and not have to feel like a loser to tell people they cannot copy or use or see her work.

[Anonymous]

A lot of kids likely do this from time to time. They shouldn't do it, but don't let your daughter feel like this is going to ruin her life. FCPS does not put any disciplinary information on their transcripts or offer it to colleges. The discipline question on college apps will ask about misconduct that resulted in probation, suspension,dismissal, removal and expulsion. Anything with a less serious consequence (including an F as a result of perceived cheating) does not need to be disclosed.

Also, colleges will only see final grades, not quarter or even semester grades. Even if she gets an F for the quarter, she can recover. (If you have a child who will have a meltdown if she doesn't get an A in everything, that might be the worst consequence).

[Anonymous]

OP,

This could be a good life's lesson for your DD. First, this is not going to be her ruin--unless she allows it to be. If this causes her to miss her first choice college--it is not the end of the world. Do not fall for the drama. There are lots of options out there.
Second, this should be a good learning experience. Be kind to your friends--but be wary. Curious on this--what was the friend's reaction? Did she apologize?
Next, and I mean this kindly--DD --and you--need to acknowledge what your DD did. I am genuinely surprised that you question the "rule" against "showing" homework. Your DD did not "show" her friend her homework--she sent her a copy of it. That is a pretty big difference. "Showing" it might be showing her how much she wrote and how she formatted it--not giving her a copy. Anyway you try to sort it out, the definition is cheating. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

I'm an FCPS teacher and I was going to say the same thing 12:30 did. I have kids who failed one quiz and their overall average is a D+ because of it. We don't have enough grades yet to balance out one bad one.

There's also a glitch in the SIS system right now that's defaulting assignments in a weighted gradebook to a point value of zero when it should be defaulting to one. Anything with a point value of zero will show up on the progress report but will NOT be calculated in the student average. Make sure you don't see anything like that on there.

[Anonymous]

OP here again. Let me answer some of questions. They are good questions.

With respect to why DD sent a copy and whether it is not better to verbally explain to another student the concept, in hind sight it is naturally better to verbally explain and talk it over. The reality is, this is not the only assignment DD need to do, she also need to study for the next class. So when her friend called, she really did not have time to discuss or go over the home work she did a few days ago. Apparently the other kid is also a very good student with high grades, so the reaction was that she just need to take a look and will instantly figure out where she got stuck. No, the peer pressure was not there, other than a friendship from another kid that always have good grades. That was also why she did not imagine that the other kid would copy, because it was out of character. So the real reason for sending the copy was so that DD can get back to another assignment from a different teacher.

Knowing how it turn out, of course she will pause and think more in the future, but at that time she was busy with another assignment.

The other student apologized many many times to DD and truly felt sorry for what she did, she even admitted to the AP that DD did not know she copied her. DD forgave her. Based on what DD told her, the other kid was truly a good student who has never done something like this before.

Lessons learned.

Thanks for the explanations about current grade is just an interim one and will be diluted once additional assignments are graded. That makes sense. Yes, I was totally confused by the report cards. I see assignments that were marked as "turned in" but graded as zero over something like ten or eight. On the top of the report card, it is marked as missing. I could not understand how could the assignment could have been marked as missing and turned in at the same time. I was told that is an issue with the system, but those items were not calculated in the grade. That is very confusing.

19:21, I don't quite understand what you sad about SIS should have defaulted to one instead of zero. Wouldn't a one actually cause the average to drop more? Zero is okay if they are not calculated in the average.

Thanks everyone for your comments and advice. They are greatly appreciated. I am ready to count it as a lesson learned and get DD to move on and focus on the study again. DD has been traumatized by this whole process and cried her eyes out for the past week. I am pretty sure it has hurt her performance in the SAT this morning as well. We need to overcome this and move on.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like your daughter is a good kid who has learned a lesson in a very rough way here, but if it makes her stop and think in the future, it will be a very worthwhile lesson. Colleges do not mess around with academic dishonesty: many will expel a student for any involvement with cheating. It is much better in the long run for her to have learned now how important it is to avoid cheating or the appearance of cheating.

It might also be a good idea for schools to review each year what constitutes cheating, so kids can be aware.