Grading Question

[Anonymous]

I have a question about the Grading and Reporting policy and I'm wondering there are any teachers here who might know the answer before I contact the Principal.

So, PGCPS policy is that the students are able to repeat assignments and have their grades replaced if a given set of criteria are met. Here is part of the policy:
....
3) Within ten school days of receiving the returned original graded work, the student completed
and resubmitted the new assessment, activity, or assignment.

4) The higher grade shall be the grade of record.

5) If the work is not eligible for reassessment, that must be identified in writing on the rubric at
the time of original assignment. Final research reports and projects that culminate a unit of study,
or final semester or marking period exams may not be reassessed.

6) Make up work can not be submitted 5 school days prior to the end of the quarter to ensure
teachers have time to grade all outstanding work.

My 4th grader had an assignment that was due in mid Feb but the teacher only graded and entered the SchoolMax data last night. If I had been provided the grade, I would have requested that we be allowed to revise it for regrading. So the policy states that you have 10 days of the receiving the grade to resubmit but that you can't resubmit anything less than 5 school days prior to the end of the quarter. So, what happens if you don't have 5 days before the end of the quarter when you get the grade?

I know it isn't a huge deal but my kid has been working hard this quarter to get straight A's.

It also drives me nuts when there is a policy that clearly contradicts itself. I already emailed the teacher questioning the grade because I was really surprised by her score.

[Anonymous]

Your child is 9 years old and get's straight A's. That is great! Mine does too. However, he can bomb one thing and still manage straight A's. Tis life. I would never request a redo unless his grade is borderline. I would let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your child is 9 years old and get's straight A's. That is great! Mine does too. However, he can bomb one thing and still manage straight A's. Tis life. I would never request a redo unless his grade is borderline. I would let it go.

It is borderline. She has all As with the exception of the one subject where she is at 88%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your child is 9 years old and get's straight A's. That is great! Mine does too. However, he can bomb one thing and still manage straight A's. Tis life. I would never request a redo unless his grade is borderline. I would let it go.

It is borderline. She has all As with the exception of the one subject where she is at 88%

Also there is a lot more going on with this specific teacher that I didn't go into.

[Anonymous]

Teachers are supposed to enter grades weekly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are supposed to enter grades weekly.

That never happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are supposed to enter grades weekly.

That never happen.

Then I would discuss that with the teachers and not a redo. Everyone isn’t going to do well with everything and this is a great age for your child to speak up for herself regarding the low grade.

[Anonymous]

Teacher here,

Grades are supposed to be entered weekly, but that doesn't happen with fidelity at my school for a number of reasons. In your situation, it sounds like the teacher fell severely behind. In that case, I would have dropped those grades. You *could* raise the issue to the principal and have the grade changed, but they've been watching grade changes in Schoolmax like a hawk due to the recent graduation scandals. The teacher would catch hell.

We follow two dates at my school. There's a date when assignments have to be submitted before our gradebooks "close," and there's the date in which we have to enter grades. There's usually a good week or so in there for the buffer. I can't understand why the teacher was still entering assignment grades so close to the quarterly grades going in. That's just asking for trouble, especially with kids who are on the cusp of an D/E.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here,

Grades are supposed to be entered weekly, but that doesn't happen with fidelity at my school for a number of reasons. In your situation, it sounds like the teacher fell severely behind. In that case, I would have dropped those grades. You *could* raise the issue to the principal and have the grade changed, but they've been watching grade changes in Schoolmax like a hawk due to the recent graduation scandals. The teacher would catch hell.

We follow two dates at my school. There's a date when assignments have to be submitted before our gradebooks "close," and there's the date in which we have to enter grades. There's usually a good week or so in there for the buffer. I can't understand why the teacher was still entering assignment grades so close to the quarterly grades going in. That's just asking for trouble, especially with kids who are on the cusp of an D/E.

OP here

Thanks for that info. Good to get input from educators.

I have emailed the teacher about it and her response was what I expected. One of the issues for this assignment was that the instructions did not provide clear instructions. She also seems to dislike the TAG pull out and doesn't give the kids a chance to do the in class work they miss. My kid had 5 in class assignments where she got zeros. I specifically asked if there were missing in class assignments and she didn't reply. Those grades weren't recorded until Weds afternoon.

There is a whole bunch of other issues with her but it all leads me to believe she shouldn't be teaching. She had been shuffled from school to school and our Principal got stuck with her when another teacher was transferred a week before school started. She is a difficult woman with a terrible attitude and the kids are afraid of her. It's not just our family that has been having problems.

Luckily we only gave a couple of months left. I did document everything and sent the Principal an email. I ended the email stating I didn't expect a grade change but I wanted to put it on the record.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are supposed to enter grades weekly.

That never happen.

I'm a specialist teacher who has worked at many different schools in the county over the past 5 years and at almost all of them, someone has been checking grades weekly to be sure they have been submitted. If we don't submit the required number of grades weekly we get either a polite email (3 of your courses lack grades for the week) or a strongly critical email (grades are missing -- note of professional practice will be entered into your file). So at least at SOME schools, weekly grading is happening and is being enforced. Just so you know -- perhaps at your school or child's school it is not happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are supposed to enter grades weekly.

That never happen.

I'm a specialist teacher who has worked at many different schools in the county over the past 5 years and at almost all of them, someone has been checking grades weekly to be sure they have been submitted. If we don't submit the required number of grades weekly we get either a polite email (3 of your courses lack grades for the week) or a strongly critical email (grades are missing -- note of professional practice will be entered into your file). So at least at SOME schools, weekly grading is happening and is being enforced. Just so you know -- perhaps at your school or child's school it is not happening.

OP-
Yeah, this teacher entered homework grades every week so she was following the rules, she just didn't enter any of the classwork or assessments until the last minute.

I thought a teacher that entered a lot of 0 grades was supposed to be flagged as well.

I have a call to the principal this morning about an event at the school and I will see if she says anything about my email.