High school grading policy - what say you?

[Anonymous]

We recently moved away from the Washington DC area to the Midwest. So far so good, but there is one little detail in DD's high school I want your opinion on. In her English class, the teacher gives them three "work ethic" points per day to go in the grade book that can be earned through participation, etc. and taken away through being on their phones, being disruptive, etc. That's not my issue. My issue is that if they kid is absent, they're automatically docked one point, if it's an unexcused they're docked three. I can understand the unexcused policy, but not the excused. How exactly is it fair for my child, who has some health issues and will miss school to be docked points on the basis of her not being there?

Or, am I overreacting?

[Anonymous]

On the one hand, if you're not in class, you can't participate in class, regardless of why you're not in class. On the other hand, if you're not in class, you also can't be on your phone or be disruptive in class.

To make it fair, you should get 0/3 for an unexcused absence and 0/0 for an excused absence. But that means that for grading, every student would have a different denominator, depending on how many excused absences they had.

For example, suppose there were 60 school days in a grading period. A student who was there every day would have total potential "work ethic" score of 180/180. A student who had 1 excused absence (i.e., was there for 59 days) would have a total potential "work ethic" score of 177/177. A student who had 10 excused absences would have a total potential "work ethic" score of 150/150. I don't think it would be hard to set up a spreadsheet to do that.

[Anonymous]

Reminds me of most of my college classes.

On one hand I agree it's harsh to penalize someone with a legitimate reason for being absent. On the other hand, those points are for specific contributions to each day's class and someone who isn't there that day obviously can't have made a contribution to work of the class so even giving two of the three points is a concession on the teacher's part.

How many total attendance points are possible to earn, out of how many total class points? Would a few excused absences have a perceptible impact on the grade, or can an otherwise good student absorb the hit? I don't think I would bring this up to the teacher or try to get it changed if it's only going to make a minor impact on students' grades.

[Anonymous]

Totally okay. That's how the real world operates.

[Anonymous]

The grading program used by FCPS makes it very easy to excuse a student from an assignment. For example, when I do random homework checks and a student is absent, I excuse him or her from it instead of taking off points. That said, I can see the teacher's point, especially if it is a high school class with the objective or preparation from college and beyond. I do wonder, though, if the teacher offers some option for students who must miss class to earn the points or at least earn an excused grade. This would level the playing field for the dedicated students (think regularly checking email from your phone when you can't be in the office), as the ones who didn't care wouldn't do the work to begin with.