DD grade pulled down by a grade that was entered last day of the marking period!
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Anonymous
There are so many things that are not the fault of teachers, parents, or students that make schools in MCPS not as efficient or as effective as they can be. It is hard for teachers to give timely, meaningful feedback when students are not completing work on time. There are some students who need flexibility, but there are many other students who are just late, and are late over and over again. You might think that is the students fault, but in a way it is not. The "system" has told them that it does not matter if they do the work on time or not as long as they are learning. That is true. Learning is important. However, when everyone is doing whatever they want whenever they want, then the teachers have no chance to maintain the organization required for timely feedback. This creates a feedback loop of each person negatively impacting the next person. We need to have a real conversation about what makes schools effective, and how to balance the limited resources (including time) in order to accomplish the goals agreed upon by all stakeholders. |
Thank you and I appreciate your work.
Anonymous
Are you a teacher? Or a parent? Either way- you got it! I am a middle school teacher who wishes I could give timely feedback but returning papers when others take until the end of the quarter to figure out whether it not they will attempt the work is absolute chaos. I have had students share information before. You can either have the feedback timely with deadlines or you have to wait until the rest of the class decides to catch up. I hate it. I’m a fair grader but giving 10 weeks to turn in work is horrendous for everyone. I’m in grad school now and if you are one minute late turning in your work you lose points. Not saying to be that extreme but learning time management and understanding why feedback is essential for continued success is a life skill these kids really don’t get to practice at mcps. |
Anonymous
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DP. When the bad grade is for an assignment done earlier in the quarter, but withheld and entered in the last-minute; this is a technique used by some teachers called 'jack-in-the-box' grading.
A rotten-egg will withhold officially entering an assignment into the system for three weeks. This way the student can't redo the assignment or recover from it. It's worse use would be by an Elementary School 5th grade, Middle School 8th grade, or HS Sophomore / Junior teacher who don't want a child to enter, for example, a Magnet program or a good college. It can also be done if the grade in the computer system is changed after the graded assignments were returned to the kid. This is becoming less frequent, since there's the chance a parent took a screenshot of the grade before it was changed; so more chance of getting caught doing it. Before the MCPS admins argue 'this never happens' - yes, it does. It happens far more frequently than anyone at MCPS would like to admit. |
Anonymous
Did she? I missed that. |
Anonymous
| This is such a great lesson for your DD and at just the right time—before she’s stuck with them for college admissions. I’d drop the battle against the teacher/school and stick to the learning moments like asking clarifying questions about rubrics BEFORE you turn in work, doing your best work the first time, getting confirmation that resubmissions will be accepted… all so helpful for your DD to learn at this very moment. She is lucky the lesson is arriving right on time. |
Anonymous
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We've had some similar situations too, OP. I'd agree that a straight A kid with. 50% just diesnt add up. My kid is now in HS and largely advocates for herself when needed, but there were a few times in MS, especially early on, when we stepped in. One was a xase where the rubric had 3 points, 3 was perfect, 2 was good and 1 was needs improvement. Well, 2 out of 3 os a D. How is that good? When we sat down and chatted, teacher agreed. She also explained where kid had nit met requirements and allowed her to redo some things. Another time, a teacher had 10 part questions and would mark all of it wrong if one part was incorrect.
As a professor, I am all about the (limited) redo. It's about learning. I get what a time suck it can be, but there can be options, and it sounds like this teacher allowed it. If so, she should grade it. If you can't get a response, talk to the kid's counselor and, if you think it is greater than this assignment (feedback issue or poor grading overall), escalate to the admin person for your kid's year. |
Anonymous
This. If you accept this situation as a learning one, your kid will be much better off in the long run. |
Anonymous
Good for your daughter for asking the question. This is a training ground for your daughter learning to engage for herself. You should coach her on the next question, which should have been, "Oh, I understand you couldn't get to it. What happens now with all the resubmitted assignments?" One point in your note though, you said that the teacher had different assignments for two different classes (on the same subject). This is so unusual it almost doesn't make sense to me. That's more work for the teacher. If your daughter doesn't understand the assignment or sees her partner has a different assignment, then you should coach her to start earlier enough that she can go back to the teacher with questions. |
Anonymous
Even if she has looked at it, if this was not an assignment that could be regraded, this is a no harm no foul. She can still talk to the teacher about it now. That is the one point OP seems not to get - not all assignments are eligible to be resubmitted for a higher grade. |
Anonymous
OP has never answered whether the teacher agree that it would be eligible for a higher grade. |
Anonymous
Reach out to the RT (dept chair, head of dept- their name usually comes first in the staff directory). I would let the school know. |
Anonymous
| Meh. It's MCPS. Getting a B in the 3rd quarter means an A in fourth is an A for the semester. |
Anonymous
It's not unusual. Many assignments may be different based on the pace of the class, the distribution of special education students, and/or the interests of the students. OP - please please please use this as a learning lesson for your daughter. Middle school grades do not count toward GPA. If this was closer to the end of the grading period, then most likely it was a summative assignment, which is not eligible for a redo. In fact, not every assignment is. Nor should it be. Some need to be a snapshot of learning for a particular standard. The secondary grading policy is very clear about this. If this was a group project and her group did not pull their weight, then that also is a learning experience for her. I always warned my students before engaging in group work that they must all contribute. In large projects, the grade can be much lower than 50% actually if sections are missing. 50% might be generous. If teachers were allowed to import actual grades, she may not have ended with a B, but much lower. Please don't make the relationship with her teacher uncomfortable by you hounding her about this project and hassling her about the grade which has already been finalized. Use it instead as a learning experience. My advice would be to closely watch this class for the last quarter of the year, and make sure your daughter asks questions VERY EARLY on to ensure she has enough time to correct any misconceptions. In high school, she will be expected to advocate for herself before assignments are due. In college, they are not very forgiving. It's either turn it in or you may not get any credit at all. There may be times when she needs to really advocate for herself in case of actual wrongdoing so it's important when to recognize when that happens, and what the best course of action is. It's very unclear what actually happened here, what the conversations with the teacher actually said, and what the timeline for the project was. If this was in fact a large project, I can not imagine it was assigned last minute. The fact that the teacher is not responding is not the best approach, but it might be helpful to have her reach out one more time if you are really that confused. Please use this as a learning experience - I promise it will be more valuable. |
Anonymous
That’s not how the grading policy works. MCPS could decide 50% for missing assignments and anything over 50% if the work WS turned in, but it hasn’t yet. If the work is half wrong, it earned 50%. If the work was redone and still half wrong, it is still worth 50%. |
Anonymous
I think some are assuming that because the teacher told her what was wrong, that it could be resubmitted and be regraded. |