We’ve had 13 days of school. How’s the new grading policy going?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so depressing. Nobody wants their taxes to go up, but without more money, how do we prevent schools from being overcrowded and class sizes from being too big to be manageable and teachers’ workloads from being twice as many hours as they’re paid for?

I don’t want my taxes to go up. The county has the money, but they mismanage and spend on unnecessary pet projects instead of paying teachers.

And this continues to be why we can’t have nice things. How much do people think should be allocated per student in average. Multiply that by 165k and that will give you the minimum amount the county needs.

Montgomery County sees its citizens as an endless piggy bank. No, I do not want my taxes to go up when the money is already there. Read what I wrote. The county has the money but does not prioritize teachers pay. Rather they spend it on pet projects for feel good headlines.

I’m not disagreeing with your take on Montgomery County, but this is literally what citizens of every county everywhere in the US say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so depressing. Nobody wants their taxes to go up, but without more money, how do we prevent schools from being overcrowded and class sizes from being too big to be manageable and teachers’ workloads from being twice as many hours as they’re paid for?

I don’t want my taxes to go up. The county has the money, but they mismanage and spend on unnecessary pet projects instead of paying teachers.

And this continues to be why we can’t have nice things. How much do people think should be allocated per student in average. Multiply that by 165k and that will give you the minimum amount the county needs.

Montgomery County sees its citizens as an endless piggy bank. No, I do not want my taxes to go up when the money is already there. Read what I wrote. The county has the money but does not prioritize teachers pay. Rather they spend it on pet projects for feel good headlines.

I’m not disagreeing with your take on Montgomery County, but this is literally what citizens of every county everywhere in the US say.

The difference is MCPS has one of the highest per pupil budgets and it’s still a hot mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blame the teachers. Business as usual. Pay no mind for the fact that they need like 80 hours to do a proper job. It's a churn and burn profession with no respect.

Exactly. I spent most of my weekend grading. My family was out enjoying the fall weather while I sat at my dining room table for two days.

My morale is in the basement and I’m extremely worried about my health, but my grades are up to date.

Then, if something is going on quit or take a leave of absense.

I did quit. The job is impossible to do. It really is unsustainable.

I’m joining you. It really is impossible.

And the more you give, the more that’s expected of you. The entire system is built on teachers’ extra labor. And they know we’ll put in 5 extra hours on a Thursday and 8 on a Saturday because we have to.

Meanwhile, there’s a thread in the Jobs and Career section of this site about off-hour meetings, and it’s filled with people posting that they won’t work off hours without pay. And that idea is supported by others.

But we demand off-hours work of our teachers. Heck, teachers are “bad” and “hurting kids” if we don’t.

Most jobs are not 8 hours a day. Mine never has been and I often do paperwork and reports and notes in the evening and weekends although I get paid less by the county and worse benefits.

So, become a teacher!

It probably would be easier and I’d have a break summers but no thanks. MCPS is a hot mess.

DP. It doesn’t have to be MCPS. Many districts are suffering for teachers. If it’s going to be so beneficial to you, I say give it a try! Win win!

I just caution you about thinking it’s so easy. The shortage exists for a reason: grueling days with no mental or physical break, never-ending paperwork, poor work/life balance, unruly or dangerous student behavior (that you have few approved ways to manage), challenging parent interactions, etc. And your unpaid summer can be eaten up by recertification classes.

But it’ll be easy for you! Join us!

MCPS is almost fully staffed. Sounds no different than other county jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

Can you recommend a way to do that?

Let’s say you have 150 essays. Each will take 15 minutes to score. That’s 37.5 sustained hours of grading for that assignment alone.

If you divide the work by 10 days, including weekends, you are adding 3.75 hours of work to each day. If you give yourself the weekend off, you’re adding 4.7 hours of work to each work day.

You have one planning period. Maybe you can get 40 minutes of grading in.

And that’s just for that one assignment. That doesn’t include emails, data, meetings, planning lessons, meeting with students, running clubs, other assignments, or other duties as assigned.

So, considering the circumstances, can you offer a recommendation? How did you get this done in 10 days?

You have to grade the papers at some point! How does it help to let things get backed up and take more time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

Can you recommend a way to do that?

Let’s say you have 150 essays. Each will take 15 minutes to score. That’s 37.5 sustained hours of grading for that assignment alone.

If you divide the work by 10 days, including weekends, you are adding 3.75 hours of work to each day. If you give yourself the weekend off, you’re adding 4.7 hours of work to each work day.

You have one planning period. Maybe you can get 40 minutes of grading in.

And that’s just for that one assignment. That doesn’t include emails, data, meetings, planning lessons, meeting with students, running clubs, other assignments, or other duties as assigned.

So, considering the circumstances, can you offer a recommendation? How did you get this done in 10 days?

Well said.

So, ah, do you guys just NOT GRADE THE PAPERS AT ALL?

You have to grade the papers at some point. It's not like waiting helps!

Explain how letting the work get backed up helps. When DO you grade it? It's not like they give you guys weeks off to grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

Can you recommend a way to do that?

Let’s say you have 150 essays. Each will take 15 minutes to score. That’s 37.5 sustained hours of grading for that assignment alone.

If you divide the work by 10 days, including weekends, you are adding 3.75 hours of work to each day. If you give yourself the weekend off, you’re adding 4.7 hours of work to each work day.

You have one planning period. Maybe you can get 40 minutes of grading in.

And that’s just for that one assignment. That doesn’t include emails, data, meetings, planning lessons, meeting with students, running clubs, other assignments, or other duties as assigned.

So, considering the circumstances, can you offer a recommendation? How did you get this done in 10 days?

Well said.

So, ah, do you guys just NOT GRADE THE PAPERS AT ALL?

You have to grade the papers at some point. It's not like waiting helps!

Explain how letting the work get backed up helps. When DO you grade it? It's not like they give you guys weeks off to grade.

Well, I’ll be honest: most of us think it’s unreasonable to give up all of our off-hours to a job. We have families and other obligations.

If schools think grading is important (which it is), then time would be provided during the work week for it. If I have to choose between grading papers and taking care of my family, my family will always win. And that’s as it should be.

I would NEVER tell a person in another profession that their nights and weekends belong to me, that I expect them to put their job first. I would tell them to get another job, one that respects them.

And for all the “MCPS is full” comments: schools are scrambling to find martyrs now, and the door is ever-revolving as people try for a year and realize the job can be miserable. If your goal is just putting a warm body in each classroom, that can be done. If your goal is to put a successful, impactful teacher in each classroom, that can’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blame the teachers. Business as usual. Pay no mind for the fact that they need like 80 hours to do a proper job. It's a churn and burn profession with no respect.

Exactly. I spent most of my weekend grading. My family was out enjoying the fall weather while I sat at my dining room table for two days.

My morale is in the basement and I’m extremely worried about my health, but my grades are up to date.

Then, if something is going on quit or take a leave of absense.

I did quit. The job is impossible to do. It really is unsustainable.

I’m joining you. It really is impossible.

And the more you give, the more that’s expected of you. The entire system is built on teachers’ extra labor. And they know we’ll put in 5 extra hours on a Thursday and 8 on a Saturday because we have to.

Meanwhile, there’s a thread in the Jobs and Career section of this site about off-hour meetings, and it’s filled with people posting that they won’t work off hours without pay. And that idea is supported by others.

But we demand off-hours work of our teachers. Heck, teachers are “bad” and “hurting kids” if we don’t.

Most jobs are not 8 hours a day. Mine never has been and I often do paperwork and reports and notes in the evening and weekends although I get paid less by the county and worse benefits.

So, become a teacher!

It probably would be easier and I’d have a break summers but no thanks. MCPS is a hot mess.

DP. It doesn’t have to be MCPS. Many districts are suffering for teachers. If it’s going to be so beneficial to you, I say give it a try! Win win!

I just caution you about thinking it’s so easy. The shortage exists for a reason: grueling days with no mental or physical break, never-ending paperwork, poor work/life balance, unruly or dangerous student behavior (that you have few approved ways to manage), challenging parent interactions, etc. And your unpaid summer can be eaten up by recertification classes.

But it’ll be easy for you! Join us!

MCPS is almost fully staffed. Sounds no different than other county jobs.

Great! I will let our reading specialist know that she doesn’t have to cover Teacher Not Assigned’s classes because this is no different than other county jobs where not filled = not done for weeks sometimes months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

Can you recommend a way to do that?

Let’s say you have 150 essays. Each will take 15 minutes to score. That’s 37.5 sustained hours of grading for that assignment alone.

If you divide the work by 10 days, including weekends, you are adding 3.75 hours of work to each day. If you give yourself the weekend off, you’re adding 4.7 hours of work to each work day.

You have one planning period. Maybe you can get 40 minutes of grading in.

And that’s just for that one assignment. That doesn’t include emails, data, meetings, planning lessons, meeting with students, running clubs, other assignments, or other duties as assigned.

So, considering the circumstances, can you offer a recommendation? How did you get this done in 10 days?

Well said.

So, ah, do you guys just NOT GRADE THE PAPERS AT ALL?

You have to grade the papers at some point. It's not like waiting helps!

Explain how letting the work get backed up helps. When DO you grade it? It's not like they give you guys weeks off to grade.

In the past, it might take 3 weeks to grade extended writing and I assigned either shorter work or ungraded tasks in between.
My grades meet the 10 day deadline, but here are the effects:
I hold students to the deadlines except for true emergencies.
I spend less time planning with the result that we won’t do some fun things that require a lot of set up.
I am less likely to return incomplete work for a student to finish.
I’ve stopped proactively emailing parents multiple times about missing work before the deadline passes.
I am not writing recommendations.
I do not attend IEP or 504 meetings unless a general educator is required.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put aside 30 minutes each night to grade assignments as they are submitted. I know that means I'm "working for free" but it helps me keep things at a manageable level so I can get everything done in compliance with the new grading policy.

What subject and grade level?

I would be thrilled if it was just 30 min a night for seven nights.

It usually 2.5 to 3 hours a night for 4-5 nights to grade a single secondary writing assignment with comments.

Hon. English 9.

I'm sure the grading responsibility will increase as the year progresses but so far through 3 weeks we have not done any large scale assignments. Each one takes 2-3 minutes to review and grade. When we get to larger written assignments, we have two staff members who work in the writing center who can assist with the heavy lifting of evaluating papers.

That’s great!

The grading load is why our school has difficulty keeping English teachers. It’s usually the cited reason when people quit. If we had someone to help with essay comments, we may be able to grow some veteran department members!

Do not all schools have English Composition Assistant positions? How do they decide which schools get them and which don't? I don't see how you can give students the real feedback on their work they deserve without burning our teachers without giving the English teachers help. Why doesn't Central Office fund and mandate these positions?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/personnel/classification/descriptions/description.aspx?fn=6690-612

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put aside 30 minutes each night to grade assignments as they are submitted. I know that means I'm "working for free" but it helps me keep things at a manageable level so I can get everything done in compliance with the new grading policy.

What subject and grade level?

I would be thrilled if it was just 30 min a night for seven nights.

It usually 2.5 to 3 hours a night for 4-5 nights to grade a single secondary writing assignment with comments.

Hon. English 9.

I'm sure the grading responsibility will increase as the year progresses but so far through 3 weeks we have not done any large scale assignments. Each one takes 2-3 minutes to review and grade. When we get to larger written assignments, we have two staff members who work in the writing center who can assist with the heavy lifting of evaluating papers.

That’s great!

The grading load is why our school has difficulty keeping English teachers. It’s usually the cited reason when people quit. If we had someone to help with essay comments, we may be able to grow some veteran department members!

Do not all schools have English Composition Assistant positions? How do they decide which schools get them and which don't? I don't see how you can give students the real feedback on their work they deserve without burning our teachers without giving the English teachers help. Why doesn't Central Office fund and mandate these positions?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/personnel/classification/descriptions/description.aspx?fn=6690-612

For the same reason they don’t mandate and fund everything that would benefit students substantially. There aren’t enough resources to go around. Should we provide one-on-one paras for students who are extremely disruptive? Should we grant them private placement and fund their tuition at private schools better suited to their needs? Should we renovate 40 year old buildings? Should we fence off an elementary school property where people frequently go to use/deal drugs at night and people get stabbed? Should we fund textbooks? Science labs? $140 graphing calculators for high school students who can’t afford to buy their own? More staff members so we can have things like English Composition Assistants? We can’t say yes to everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put aside 30 minutes each night to grade assignments as they are submitted. I know that means I'm "working for free" but it helps me keep things at a manageable level so I can get everything done in compliance with the new grading policy.

What subject and grade level?

I would be thrilled if it was just 30 min a night for seven nights.

It usually 2.5 to 3 hours a night for 4-5 nights to grade a single secondary writing assignment with comments.

Hon. English 9.

I'm sure the grading responsibility will increase as the year progresses but so far through 3 weeks we have not done any large scale assignments. Each one takes 2-3 minutes to review and grade. When we get to larger written assignments, we have two staff members who work in the writing center who can assist with the heavy lifting of evaluating papers.

That’s great!


The grading load is why our school has difficulty keeping English teachers. It’s usually the cited reason when people quit. If we had someone to help with essay comments, we may be able to grow some veteran department members!

Do not all schools have English Composition Assistant positions? How do they decide which schools get them and which don't? I don't see how you can give students the real feedback on their work they deserve without burning our teachers without giving the English teachers help. Why doesn't Central Office fund and mandate these positions?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/personnel/classification/descriptions/description.aspx?fn=6690-612

Every high school in the county is supposed to have at least one composition assistant. Some may have 1.5 depending on the school enrollment numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

Can you recommend a way to do that?

Let’s say you have 150 essays. Each will take 15 minutes to score. That’s 37.5 sustained hours of grading for that assignment alone.

If you divide the work by 10 days, including weekends, you are adding 3.75 hours of work to each day. If you give yourself the weekend off, you’re adding 4.7 hours of work to each work day.

You have one planning period. Maybe you can get 40 minutes of grading in.

And that’s just for that one assignment. That doesn’t include emails, data, meetings, planning lessons, meeting with students, running clubs, other assignments, or other duties as assigned.

So, considering the circumstances, can you offer a recommendation? How did you get this done in 10 days?

Well said.

So, ah, do you guys just NOT GRADE THE PAPERS AT ALL?

You have to grade the papers at some point. It's not like waiting helps!

Explain how letting the work get backed up helps. When DO you grade it? It's not like they give you guys weeks off to grade.

In the past, it might take 3 weeks to grade extended writing and I assigned either shorter work or ungraded tasks in between.
My grades meet the 10 day deadline, but here are the effects:
I hold students to the deadlines except for true emergencies.
I spend less time planning with the result that we won’t do some fun things that require a lot of set up.
I am less likely to return incomplete work for a student to finish.
I’ve stopped proactively emailing parents multiple times about missing work before the deadline passes.
I am not writing recommendations.
I do not attend IEP or 504 meetings unless a general educator is required.

This is the solution. Grading now takes priority over all tasks that aren’t required by my contract.

As you wrote, that even includes college recommendation letters and college essay comment requests. I say yes to considerably fewer students now. I don’t proactively update parents as often as I used to. Additionally, I don’t differentiate my lessons to accommodate student interest or needs as well as I should.

We only have a finite number of hours in a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

Can you recommend a way to do that?

Let’s say you have 150 essays. Each will take 15 minutes to score. That’s 37.5 sustained hours of grading for that assignment alone.

If you divide the work by 10 days, including weekends, you are adding 3.75 hours of work to each day. If you give yourself the weekend off, you’re adding 4.7 hours of work to each work day.

You have one planning period. Maybe you can get 40 minutes of grading in.

And that’s just for that one assignment. That doesn’t include emails, data, meetings, planning lessons, meeting with students, running clubs, other assignments, or other duties as assigned.

So, considering the circumstances, can you offer a recommendation? How did you get this done in 10 days?

Well said.

So, ah, do you guys just NOT GRADE THE PAPERS AT ALL?

You have to grade the papers at some point. It's not like waiting helps!

Explain how letting the work get backed up helps. When DO you grade it? It's not like they give you guys weeks off to grade.

We had one teacher that didn't. She'd wait till the end of the grading period and just assign a grade. The assignments went ungraded per the website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I put aside 30 minutes each night to grade assignments as they are submitted. I know that means I'm "working for free" but it helps me keep things at a manageable level so I can get everything done in compliance with the new grading policy.

What subject and grade level?

I would be thrilled if it was just 30 min a night for seven nights.

It usually 2.5 to 3 hours a night for 4-5 nights to grade a single secondary writing assignment with comments.

Hon. English 9.

I'm sure the grading responsibility will increase as the year progresses but so far through 3 weeks we have not done any large scale assignments. Each one takes 2-3 minutes to review and grade. When we get to larger written assignments, we have two staff members who work in the writing center who can assist with the heavy lifting of evaluating papers.

That’s great!

The grading load is why our school has difficulty keeping English teachers. It’s usually the cited reason when people quit. If we had someone to help with essay comments, we may be able to grow some veteran department members!

Do not all schools have English Composition Assistant positions? How do they decide which schools get them and which don't? I don't see how you can give students the real feedback on their work they deserve without burning our teachers without giving the English teachers help. Why doesn't Central Office fund and mandate these positions?

https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/personnel/classification/descriptions/description.aspx?fn=6690-612

For the same reason they don’t mandate and fund everything that would benefit students substantially. There aren’t enough resources to go around. Should we provide one-on-one paras for students who are extremely disruptive? Should we grant them private placement and fund their tuition at private schools better suited to their needs? Should we renovate 40 year old buildings? Should we fence off an elementary school property where people frequently go to use/deal drugs at night and people get stabbed? Should we fund textbooks? Science labs? $140 graphing calculators for high school students who can’t afford to buy their own? More staff members so we can have things like English Composition Assistants? We can’t say yes to everything.

What school are you at? Our school never had graphing calculators or even textbooks. We never had science labs either. Science classes are a joke. And, yes, those kids in private placements have high needs, and MCPS cannot serve them BECAUSE they shut down all the programs that could. There are enough resources, MCPS has a spending and accountability issue. Para's are poorly paid so they cannot hire enough. They get minimum wage, no benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a professor and I've also taught at the high school level.

Ten day turnaround is entirely reasonable. You have to grade them at some point. Why not grade them in a timely fashion so that the student can benefit from the feedback?

Can you recommend a way to do that?

Let’s say you have 150 essays. Each will take 15 minutes to score. That’s 37.5 sustained hours of grading for that assignment alone.

If you divide the work by 10 days, including weekends, you are adding 3.75 hours of work to each day. If you give yourself the weekend off, you’re adding 4.7 hours of work to each work day.

You have one planning period. Maybe you can get 40 minutes of grading in.

And that’s just for that one assignment. That doesn’t include emails, data, meetings, planning lessons, meeting with students, running clubs, other assignments, or other duties as assigned.

So, considering the circumstances, can you offer a recommendation? How did you get this done in 10 days?

Well said.

So, ah, do you guys just NOT GRADE THE PAPERS AT ALL?

You have to grade the papers at some point. It's not like waiting helps!

Explain how letting the work get backed up helps. When DO you grade it? It's not like they give you guys weeks off to grade.

In the past, it might take 3 weeks to grade extended writing and I assigned either shorter work or ungraded tasks in between.
My grades meet the 10 day deadline, but here are the effects:
I hold students to the deadlines except for true emergencies.
I spend less time planning with the result that we won’t do some fun things that require a lot of set up.
I am less likely to return incomplete work for a student to finish.
I’ve stopped proactively emailing parents multiple times about missing work before the deadline passes.
I am not writing recommendations.
I do not attend IEP or 504 meetings unless a general educator is required.

Teachers never reach out with missed work. Its rare they respond to emails. None go to IEP or 504 meetings. Be real.