K report cards. Help me understand Ns and Is. And does it matter?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
DD's teacher just emailed earlier in the week to tell us she'll be getting a number of Ns and Is due to her not completing work such as math worksheets where she has to write the numbers or writing worksheets where she has to write letters.
DD is above grade level for the areas that the teacher says she's giving her Ns and Is so the problem isn't that she doesn't know the information. I am 100 percent sure the teacher knows DD knows this information as she scored extremely well on assessments they did when they first started K. I do believe that teachers should be allowed to penalized students for not following directions and doing all the work that is assigned even if they have mastered the skills being practiced. However, the MCPS grading system does not seem to take this into account according to the official descriptions of the grading system. They seem to imply that the only thing that matters for some subjects is whether you are at the grade level standard. MCPS definitions: I In progress toward meeting the grade-level standard N Not yet making progress or making minimal progress toward meeting the grade-level standard I'm sad about the bad grades, but not tremendously worried as this is K after all, but I worry that the grades imply that DD is working at below grade level at many subjects where in reality she's just working below grade level in terms of her study habits and following directions etc. Do you tell your child his/her grades on a report card like this? I worry it would hurt her self-esteem and make her feel stupid. |
Anonymous
| I wouldn't focus on the grades at all. But it might be worth asking why she's not completing the work. (This is easiest if you get the papers home.) You can also let her know that her teacher can't tell if she understands the concepts if she doesn't do the work. |
Anonymous
| The teacher is not applying the new standards based grading correctly. Please contact the staff development resource at your school or the central office. The system calls for grading proficiency not effort or achievement. If the teacher knows that your daughter understands the skill because she has obviously demonstrated it to the teacher (or the teacher wouldn't say that she knows it) then in the new system the child is a P not an I or N. |
Anonymous
| No, I don't think it matters in the grand scheme of things in K. My son is in 2nd grade and the grades matter because it depends on which group he is I. For spelling, reading and math. He is very motivated to move to a higher group (in contrast, my daughter doesn't give a damn...). Is there any reason why she is not finishing her work? That's the area I would focus on improving over the next 6 months. |
Anonymous
| Lots of Ns and Is mean your kid will be living at home until she is 40, working at the mall sweeping floors and working the night shift at a Sheetz in Wheaton. |
Anonymous
| Not OP, but though I know we're not supposed to care about grades in K, they can have some impacts on the kid. I totally agree that they don't tell you anything about your kid's potential or anything. But if you're thinking about applying to private schools in the next couple years, they do matter. And the application of the standards as set out in OP's OP sounds really stupid. |
Anonymous
Oh, I would definitely *not* tell my kid about his/her grades in Kindergarten. If I had concerns that my kid weren't trying at assignments, I'd tell him/her that the teacher said s/he wasn't trying at assignments. I don't think I'd even mention the existence of grades. |
Anonymous
| OP -- did the teacher mention this as a concern in parent/teacher conference? This seems really odd. |
Anonymous
I live in wheaton and sadly there is no sheetz here- I wish there was! |
Anonymous
|
Hi, This is OP and the teacher did mention that it happened occasionally during the November conference but told us she was writing us the email because she was completing fewer and fewer assignments recently. When we asked DD she told she wanted to go play and so she just scribbled anything down and handed the worksheets in to a giant box. I'm not sure all K classes are set up like this but apparently after you finish your work you can choose a center. We don't get all of the work sent home but from the stuff we do get we noticed she tends to skip the worksheets that say things like color all the "V"s purple and the "U"s green. These are really simple sheets like that that are time consuming but not really fun from her perspective.
We have tried explaining to her that she has to complete her work and that that's her job but she just laughs in a nice way and nods and says she'll do better but then doesn't do the work at school. The class is very large and the teacher doesn't really check the work while the kids are doing it but after school and by that time, from what I can tell, DD has already spent most of her school day playing cards with her friends or reading books or whatever. The teacher did not say what, if anything, she was doing to encourage DD to do her work. Would it be okay for me to ask that or would it sound too defensive? I don't mean it in a defensive way. Or would it be okay if I asked her to please remind DD when she is walking around that she needs to do all her work and not just scribble anything so that she can pretend she has done her work?
|
Anonymous
|
Sounds like your child is getting bored and its more of a "it sucks, boring and I am not going to finish it."
Happens with many kids at MCPS. The range of kids means that the kids that need the most work, get the most amount of time with the teacher. So kids that know the stuff get left to do centers on their own and once they get adjusted to school and realize "this is it?" they start to blow off centers, goof off with friends and so forth. Your teacher is grading incorrectly and she should be grading the discipline sheet with issues, not her knowledge. She also should have asked for another conference at this point so that is another red flag. You need to talk to your child about the importance of completing work and you should also ask if you can come observe in the classroom as well. The sad fact is there is only one teacher to 25 kids average in K classes and too much time is not teaching but self-learning. Some kids are really bad at this and need more structure. |
Anonymous
| are you SURE she understands this? this sort of behavior seems deflective. |
Anonymous
| I would not mention grades but I would also not let this attitude persist. I might ask the teacher to send home the incomplete work and make DD do it at home. Not because she actually needs to learn how to make V's purple, but because she needs to learn that you can't skip your work to do something fun at school, or else you will be skipping something fun at home to redo the work. It's just a bad habit and mindset to get into. The grades are not important. |
Anonymous
| I don't think it matters what the grading rubric is. Even if it was P for pass or NP for Not Passed, if a child is not completing the work, then wouldn't the teacher give an NP because the child is not able to show consistently (by completely the work correctly) that he/she understands the material? |
Anonymous
| Grade cards are not due out soon are they? Thought it was sometime in Feb or Mar.for ES. |