Changes to grading for all MCPS high school students

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.

Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.

Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.

Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.

The other four are giving you what they are paid for.

Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.

I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:

I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.

And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.

So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.

So… SHOULD this be my job?

How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?

I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.

As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.

Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.

“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”

The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.

I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.

If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.

DP here.

I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?

Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.

Did you think this through, PP?

Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.

Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.

And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.

Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?

I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.

In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.

It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.

Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.

Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.

Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.

Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.

Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.

The other four are giving you what they are paid for.

Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.

I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:

I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.

And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.

So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.

So… SHOULD this be my job?

How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?

I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.

Out of curiosity, can the parents see the feedback? One thing I find frustrating is that as a parent I can rarely see the feedback. Otherwise I would go over it with my kid. “the teacher says you need a better into sentence. Can you think of a good into sentence for this paragraph?” Etc. I do think it’s hard for 11-13 year olds to look at written feedback and internalize it. I work with 25-30 hear olds and I am often told they want oral feedback, not just my written feedback on their work product. I get ghat teachers don’t have time to sit down with every kid but I feel like there is missed opposition for parents to partner with teachers in this effort.

I receive that feeeback in the work place too - don’t just send written comments. Make appointments to sit and go through the document to explain the reasons for high and low level changes. Personally I didn’t post it earlier because it’s clear the teachers posting here don’t care about such things or don’t want to spend the time.

I’m one of the teachers posting here. I work about 70 hours a week, primarily because of my grading load. That’s what it takes to provide feedback in a timely manner. As I said earlier: I am the teacher you want. Being that teacher is burning me out.

Here’s what I do:
1. Give up my nights and weekends to grade
2. Give written feedback within two weeks. I can’t do earlier because, as I said, one assignment can take me almost 40 hours to grade.
3. Provide class time for students to read my comments. They must comment back AND provide revisions. This goes home for review and comes back to me within 2 days.
4. I review their revisions (another 10 hours of grading) returned within 3 days.
5. The process starts again with the next writing assignment. The portfolio builds.

This is what everybody here is asking for. It’s me doing the job as it should be done.

I’m not given ANY time to do this, so it comes from my family. No, that’s not okay. It’s why teachers start phoning it in. Our job should not be in direct competition with our health and our own lives.

I want to thank you for this but can you tell me if you share that feedback with parents? If not, is there a reason why? I genuinely want to help the teachers help my kids — I spent several hours a week myself on parentvue and canvass trying to figure out what I can see, but it’s actually very little. When I was a kid I have paper assignments and books and graded papers that my parents could review with me. I feel like part of the problem is that the current systems discourage parents from being involved in their kids education, which is probably to the detriment of both the kids and the teachers.

I teach advanced high school courses. I firmly believe students must be their own advocates, so I do not involve parents every step of the way. My students must be prepared for college coursework in 1-2 years, and parents will have no access to professors then.

I explain my writing tasks and the progression at the start of the year; this information is in all of my course documentation. Essays, which are hand written in class, are announced a week ahead of time in class and online. I include links to any prep materials. The essays, with comments, can go home for two days for reflection and revision. At that point, I want them back in the classroom so I can rescore and then they can be added to individual portfolios.

Parents have access to the calendar and prep materials. They can see the comments when the essays go home for revision.

But, by junior year, I do not directly involve parents. If a parent wants to meet with me, which occasionally happens, I absolutely welcome that and we can review the student’s work together. I’m available before or after school every day.

Kids sometimes have reasons why they will not approach teachers and someone still need support. As a parent if my kid needs me to step in I will. Handwriting essays is terrible.

Not only does your own writing need work, but you need to brush up on the latest neuroscience.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.

Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.

Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.

Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.

The other four are giving you what they are paid for.

Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.

I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:

I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.

And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.

So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.

So… SHOULD this be my job?

How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?

I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.

Out of curiosity, can the parents see the feedback? One thing I find frustrating is that as a parent I can rarely see the feedback. Otherwise I would go over it with my kid. “the teacher says you need a better into sentence. Can you think of a good into sentence for this paragraph?” Etc. I do think it’s hard for 11-13 year olds to look at written feedback and internalize it. I work with 25-30 hear olds and I am often told they want oral feedback, not just my written feedback on their work product. I get ghat teachers don’t have time to sit down with every kid but I feel like there is missed opposition for parents to partner with teachers in this effort.

I receive that feeeback in the work place too - don’t just send written comments. Make appointments to sit and go through the document to explain the reasons for high and low level changes. Personally I didn’t post it earlier because it’s clear the teachers posting here don’t care about such things or don’t want to spend the time.

I’m one of the teachers posting here. I work about 70 hours a week, primarily because of my grading load. That’s what it takes to provide feedback in a timely manner. As I said earlier: I am the teacher you want. Being that teacher is burning me out.

Here’s what I do:
1. Give up my nights and weekends to grade
2. Give written feedback within two weeks. I can’t do earlier because, as I said, one assignment can take me almost 40 hours to grade.
3. Provide class time for students to read my comments. They must comment back AND provide revisions. This goes home for review and comes back to me within 2 days.
4. I review their revisions (another 10 hours of grading) returned within 3 days.
5. The process starts again with the next writing assignment. The portfolio builds.

This is what everybody here is asking for. It’s me doing the job as it should be done.

I’m not given ANY time to do this, so it comes from my family. No, that’s not okay. It’s why teachers start phoning it in. Our job should not be in direct competition with our health and our own lives.

I want to thank you for this but can you tell me if you share that feedback with parents? If not, is there a reason why? I genuinely want to help the teachers help my kids — I spent several hours a week myself on parentvue and canvass trying to figure out what I can see, but it’s actually very little. When I was a kid I have paper assignments and books and graded papers that my parents could review with me. I feel like part of the problem is that the current systems discourage parents from being involved in their kids education, which is probably to the detriment of both the kids and the teachers.

I teach advanced high school courses. I firmly believe students must be their own advocates, so I do not involve parents every step of the way. My students must be prepared for college coursework in 1-2 years, and parents will have no access to professors then.

I explain my writing tasks and the progression at the start of the year; this information is in all of my course documentation. Essays, which are hand written in class, are announced a week ahead of time in class and online. I include links to any prep materials. The essays, with comments, can go home for two days for reflection and revision. At that point, I want them back in the classroom so I can rescore and then they can be added to individual portfolios.

Parents have access to the calendar and prep materials. They can see the comments when the essays go home for revision.

But, by junior year, I do not directly involve parents. If a parent wants to meet with me, which occasionally happens, I absolutely welcome that and we can review the student’s work together. I’m available before or after school every day.

This is great. My kid is going into his junior year and I’ve never seen comments come back on essays. I would definitely review them with him so that he could have more opportunity to grow in his writing. Thank you for doing that.
I think the college analogy is somewhat stretched though. In a typical McPS schedule a kid might have 20 assignments due on a week. That just never happens in college. It’s a lot to keep track of — for kids whose frontal lobes are much less developed than college kids. My kid got a C this wuarter because he missed one assignment in a class — got as on everything he turned in but just missed one thing and got a zero. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in college because yo don’t have constant turn-in dates. I’d love a system where it’s easier to track what it coming up and what has been turned in. With the current systems, you often don’t see that something wasn’t turned in until a month later when the grade posts. And many teachers don’t post the calendar due dates until a couple days before.

PP - you obviously don't have any kids in college. College has changed to deal with these same kids, who fail to read books, so now professors assign reading quizzes for each class, or "discussion boards" where kids must comment on the reading, etc. LOTS of assignments now in many of the courses.

[Anonymous]

Careful about assuming teachers are available for lunch. By contract, teachers typically have no required duty. Maybe an occasional hallway or cafeteria duty.

Teachers need to eat, use the bathroom, make personal/professional phone calls, catch up on updating classes for the afternoon, emails, department meetings, etc. during lunch.

[Anonymous]

As someone who went to school in mcps in the 90s and early 2000s, the disdain for teachers in this thread is unreal.
Frightening really.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who went to school in mcps in the 90s and early 2000s, the disdain for teachers in this thread is unreal.
Frightening really.

Thank you for seeing it. Sincerely. It makes a hard job even harder.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.

Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.

Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.

Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.

The other four are giving you what they are paid for.

Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.

I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:

I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.

And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.

So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.

So… SHOULD this be my job?

How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?

I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.

As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.

Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.

“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”

The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.

I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.

If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.

DP here.

I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?

Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.

Did you think this through, PP?

Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.

Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.

And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.

Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?

I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.

In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.

It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.

Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.

Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.

Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.

My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.

As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who went to school in mcps in the 90s and early 2000s, the disdain for teachers in this thread is unreal.
Frightening really.

There are great teachers and rally bad ones. It’s telling when they are posting here during school hours. I want teachers to teach and support kids. As parents we do our best to help our kids, work with them at home and get tutoring but we need communication on what’s going on to be successful.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.

Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.

Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.

Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.

The other four are giving you what they are paid for.

Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.

I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:

I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.

And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.

So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.

So… SHOULD this be my job?

How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?

I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.

Out of curiosity, can the parents see the feedback? One thing I find frustrating is that as a parent I can rarely see the feedback. Otherwise I would go over it with my kid. “the teacher says you need a better into sentence. Can you think of a good into sentence for this paragraph?” Etc. I do think it’s hard for 11-13 year olds to look at written feedback and internalize it. I work with 25-30 hear olds and I am often told they want oral feedback, not just my written feedback on their work product. I get ghat teachers don’t have time to sit down with every kid but I feel like there is missed opposition for parents to partner with teachers in this effort.

I receive that feeeback in the work place too - don’t just send written comments. Make appointments to sit and go through the document to explain the reasons for high and low level changes. Personally I didn’t post it earlier because it’s clear the teachers posting here don’t care about such things or don’t want to spend the time.

I’m one of the teachers posting here. I work about 70 hours a week, primarily because of my grading load. That’s what it takes to provide feedback in a timely manner. As I said earlier: I am the teacher you want. Being that teacher is burning me out.

Here’s what I do:
1. Give up my nights and weekends to grade
2. Give written feedback within two weeks. I can’t do earlier because, as I said, one assignment can take me almost 40 hours to grade.
3. Provide class time for students to read my comments. They must comment back AND provide revisions. This goes home for review and comes back to me within 2 days.
4. I review their revisions (another 10 hours of grading) returned within 3 days.
5. The process starts again with the next writing assignment. The portfolio builds.

This is what everybody here is asking for. It’s me doing the job as it should be done.

I’m not given ANY time to do this, so it comes from my family. No, that’s not okay. It’s why teachers start phoning it in. Our job should not be in direct competition with our health and our own lives.

I want to thank you for this but can you tell me if you share that feedback with parents? If not, is there a reason why? I genuinely want to help the teachers help my kids — I spent several hours a week myself on parentvue and canvass trying to figure out what I can see, but it’s actually very little. When I was a kid I have paper assignments and books and graded papers that my parents could review with me. I feel like part of the problem is that the current systems discourage parents from being involved in their kids education, which is probably to the detriment of both the kids and the teachers.

I teach advanced high school courses. I firmly believe students must be their own advocates, so I do not involve parents every step of the way. My students must be prepared for college coursework in 1-2 years, and parents will have no access to professors then.

I explain my writing tasks and the progression at the start of the year; this information is in all of my course documentation. Essays, which are hand written in class, are announced a week ahead of time in class and online. I include links to any prep materials. The essays, with comments, can go home for two days for reflection and revision. At that point, I want them back in the classroom so I can rescore and then they can be added to individual portfolios.

Parents have access to the calendar and prep materials. They can see the comments when the essays go home for revision.

But, by junior year, I do not directly involve parents. If a parent wants to meet with me, which occasionally happens, I absolutely welcome that and we can review the student’s work together. I’m available before or after school every day.

Kids sometimes have reasons why they will not approach teachers and someone still need support. As a parent if my kid needs me to step in I will. Handwriting essays is terrible.

Not only does your own writing need work, but you need to brush up on the latest neuroscience.

Your neuroscience is a bunch of bunk and I’m a good writer as are my kids as I have spent many hours working with them. I also taught them to type so they can write more quickly and edit easily. We review all assignments.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.

Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.

Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.

Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.

The other four are giving you what they are paid for.

Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.

I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:

I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.

And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.

So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.

So… SHOULD this be my job?

How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?

I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.

As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.

Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.

“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”

The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.

I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.

If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.

DP here.

I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?

Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.

Did you think this through, PP?

Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.

Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.

And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.

Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?

I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.

In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.

It’s not the parents responsibility to advocate, it’s yours and your union.

Sure, sure. And, understanding that, the parents need to accept what they get because that's all they advocated for. The teachers teach the class. Expecting them to then personally hold little Janie/Jonny's hand and remind them eleven times to turn in their work and then stay in at lunch and after school to re-teach the classwork they already taught is unreasonable. You want the teachers to put in the work to teach your kid study skills because you didn't/don't. That's not their responsibility, it's yours. If you insist on offloading that responsibility and putting the burden on the teachers, then yes, you DO have to get involved to figure out how and when, exactly, they're supposed to do all of that on top of their actual job of teaching the curriculum during school hours.

Algebra class is about Algebra, not study skills. You're expected to provide that, just like all other necessary school supplies. Do your job.

Problem is not all teachers teach. In math we e has teachers send links to videos and tell the kids to use them. Teachers need to teach study skills and time management. Parents can support. Instead we are the ones teaching our kids algebra or working ourselves to pay for tutors so our kids can be successful.

My favorite is in English when they show a video or play a recording of the book vs actually reading it. Kids don’t even get a copy of the book except if we buy it.

As a teacher you advocate for your needs as should your union. As parents we advocate for our kids. As an adult stop expecting others to do your job and meet your needs.

This isn’t a battle. As a teacher, I’m not fighting to have my needs met. I’m fighting to provide more for my students. That may look like advocating for more grading time, but that’s so my students can receive more timely feedback. Everything we do is for our students. We are not in competition with you, as your last paragraph suggests. We want to work with you.

And curriculum is not set by individual teachers, so you are going to battle against the wrong people anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who went to school in mcps in the 90s and early 2000s, the disdain for teachers in this thread is unreal.
Frightening really.

My youngest just graduated from MCPS and I agree with you. And I think the entitlement, the lack of understanding, the low expectations of their kids with the corresponding demand that teachers coddle.

I mean, keeping track of assignments and turning them in is a skill that MCPS starts to teach in 6th grade. To expect teachers of seniors to make sure mommy knows each assignment and each due date after years of teaching their child to do this independently scares me.

These parents are in for a huge awakening in college. They will either realize their kids played them when magically they are independently successful as a freshman or they will realize their kids may be lost causes and only have themselves to blame because they didn’t force accountability when they had more control. Blaming teachers and expecting hand holding is not going to make kids independent.

Anyways, MCPS teachers, my family appreciates you. You did a great job with all three of my kids. I am impressed at how hard you work and how much you accomplish when you are under resourced and have to deal with the behavioral challenges of the modern school experience.

[Anonymous]

Back to the original point of the post grading policy changes.

Are AP classes taking finals as well? When will finals be scheduled because Seniors end the semester earlier? When is formal announcement going to be made about all the changes to everyone? When is an updated calendar for the new school year going to be posted? What supports are going to be provided to teachers/schools to ensure feedback/grades are posted within 10th n days and who is monitoring?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone who went to school in mcps in the 90s and early 2000s, the disdain for teachers in this thread is unreal.
Frightening really.

My youngest just graduated from MCPS and I agree with you. And I think the entitlement, the lack of understanding, the low expectations of their kids with the corresponding demand that teachers coddle.

I mean, keeping track of assignments and turning them in is a skill that MCPS starts to teach in 6th grade. To expect teachers of seniors to make sure mommy knows each assignment and each due date after years of teaching their child to do this independently scares me.

These parents are in for a huge awakening in college. They will either realize their kids played them when magically they are independently successful as a freshman or they will realize their kids may be lost causes and only have themselves to blame because they didn’t force accountability when they had more control. Blaming teachers and expecting hand holding is not going to make kids independent.

Anyways, MCPS teachers, my family appreciates you. You did a great job with all three of my kids. I am impressed at how hard you work and how much you accomplish when you are under resourced and have to deal with the behavioral challenges of the modern school experience.

Why can’t the teachers keep track of their own assignments and turn them back? Why are half the assignments graded on the last weekend of the school year? Why are students expected to be more responsible than the teachers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.

Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.

Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.

Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.

The other four are giving you what they are paid for.

Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.

I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:

I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.

And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.

So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.

So… SHOULD this be my job?

How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?

I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.

As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.

Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.

“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”

The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.

I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.

If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.

DP here.

I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?

Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.

Did you think this through, PP?

Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.

Right, the teacher should ignore the other students and focus on my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about a rule where teachers and admin need to respond to parents within three days. We have teachers and admin who clearly read the messages and don’t respond. How about teachers needing to consistently post assignments online so parents know what’s going on. How about teachers grade within a week so kids know how they are doing? We have teachers who still have not graded or posted in a month. Not ok. Kids can only be successful if teachers also put in the effort.

Most teachers are putting in the effort. But that effort requires time. We’ve done this math multiple times but here it is again:
150 students x 5min an assignment =750mins / 60mins in an hour = 12.5 hours . Thats the total time to grade one assignment. If a teacher got one class period free per day let’s say 47mins x 5 days =235 mins /60 =3.9 hours. That’s how much time they had in their work week to potentially grade. There other 8.6 hours comes from their personal life.

Out of seven teachers, three are putting in effort. Getting a month behind on grading and not responding to parents is not ok.

Thank those three. They gave up their weekends and evenings for you.

The other four are giving you what they are paid for.

Some, yes, some no. It’s their job. Not ok to not grade. As of today still no grades posted for the past month.

I’m a DP, but I’m happy to repeat the math for you:

I have 150 students. A writing assignment can take 15 minutes to grade. That’s 37.5 hours of grading. I get approximately 3.5 hours a week of time to get my work done.

And that’s just one assignment. Just one. That doesn’t include emails I need to respond to, reports I have to update, plans I have to revise.

So literally half my job has to be done on my own time. Over 30 hours a week.

So… SHOULD this be my job?

How do you think your students will improve without written feedback? I get that it takes time, but isn’t this a huge part of learning and the job?

I am a middle school teacher. My students do not read the feedback. They look at their grade and come up to me and say 'why did I get a B/C?' I ask them about looking at the feedback and they say nope.

As parents, we are going in and reading it. And, if that many kids are struggling, maybe you need to take some more time to reinforce the concepts they are struggling with.

Yep, keep blaming the teacher. At what point does the student have any accountability.

“Please read my feedback and if you have additional questions, we can meet at x time.”

The teacher mentioned middle schoolers. She needs to train them in the way she wants to behave. You get tweens to be accountable by telling and holding them what the standards are.

I know that it is difficult to believe, so I will ask it again, what time during the day do I have to meet with 150 middle schoolers to go over their feedback? I don't have office hours. If I am not teaching a class, I am in a meeting or planning or grading. If I open up time to meet individually with students, what should I not do? Plan or grade? Oh, you want me to be like the PP who works 70 hours a week. I am not going to do that. And you can continue to assume that I am a bad teacher, but this is a job. Until MCPS can give me the appropriate time to do my job, things won't get done. The only reason the public school system is not failing is because teachers are giving up their lives to hold it together. And for what? For parents to still not value what we do. I will say it again. Please fight for teachers to have the time to implement this new grading policy with fidelity. Demand MCPS gives us time to do this.

If the idea that you would meet with a kid before school, at lunch, or after school is so unfathomable to you, you are worse than I thought. My children are in high school and fortunately we have yet to encounter a teacher who is so extreme.

DP here.

I’m genuinely curious. How do you think the teacher above is going to meet with 150 students individually?

Let’s say she meets with 2 students before school each day, 2 at her lunch, and 3 after school. That’s 7 a day she can meet with if she gives up any and all available time she has. (And that’s assuming that time wasn’t already taken up by other requirements.) She can meet with 35 students a week. It’ll take her 5 weeks to meet with all 150 and that’s by giving up ALL the time she has.

Did you think this through, PP?

Did you read what I wrote? My kids have always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it. Do you really think all 150 students are trying to meet with the teacher outside of class? Did you think through the assumptions in your math? How many kids do you think are going to ask to meet outside of class? Do you think every meeting is one-on-one. Do you even know any high schoolers? You need to post that goblin math to excuse lame teacher like the one above who posted.

Your rudeness is beyond unnecessary. You are responding to a teacher who has over 7 hours of meeting time A WEEK for students. I am available before and after school every day. You even said yourself that you have "always had teachers who meet with students who ask for it." So I'm not sure why you need to be rude.

And, as a teacher, I'm very aware of how many students ask for help versus how many don't. That's simply not the point of this subthread. If you follow the conversation, it started with the suggestion that teachers meet individually for verbal feedback. That, as I stated above, simply can't be done.

Once again: no need to be absolutely rude with your "lame teacher" and "goblin math" comments. Some of us are working extremely hard FOR YOU and don't need to be put down at every chance. It gets old, you know?

I am responding to the poster who tried to defend you while insulting me. I am perfectly aware of how this subthread started — I helped start it. Do you think it’s helpful for the conversation for the poster to pretend it would take you 5 weeks to meet with each individual students on every individual assignment? I don’t. That poster is not serious and need not be taken seriously. If you are the teacher above who defended your decision not to meet with their students outside of class because it’s just a job, then you are indeed lame.

In middle school there is no 'outside of class' time to meet with students. This is what we call a toxic relationship. Teachers tells you they do not have enough time in the day to do their job. Parents say if we just did more or were better organized or gave up our lives we could do it. That one teacher who works over 70 hours a week does, so we should too. You call us lame when we don't do agree with you. Keep blaming the teachers. This is what MCPS wants. If parents actually wanted things to change they would demand that MCPS gave us time to implement these changes.

Middle school has 2 20 minute blocks per week for students to meet with teachers. It’s “mascot time”.