1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
The teacher didn’t “recreationally” stress the kid out. I’m CERTAIN the teacher didn’t have nefarious intentions.
An evil “jerk” of a teacher isn’t going to immediately issue a retake. Let’s stop the “teacher is out to get the kid” narrative, shall we?
And we aren’t claiming it’s “fine.” We are claiming the mom’s reaction ISN’T fine. There’s a distinction you are missing here.
Let’s instead question the narrative of “certainty”. You’re not “certain” this teacher wasn’t out to get the kid, and the fact that they issued a retake is likely more to do with the fact that they knew that if this was challenged the student/parent would win.
Bad teachers exist. They harm students and they harm other teachers. Running shrieking to the defense of a teacher who was in the wrong doesn’t create more confidence in other teachers or their judgment, rather it undermines it.
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
That isn’t what the student reported. Why are you, who wasn’t there, making up a narrative counter to the student that was?
Is there other inappropriate behavior where you would make up a fake narrative to undermine the student and protect the teacher?
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
That isn’t what the student reported. Why are you, who wasn’t there, making up a narrative counter to the student that was?
Is there other inappropriate behavior where you would make up a fake narrative to undermine the student and protect the teacher?
Not a single one of us was in the classroom. The MOTHER wasn’t in the classroom.
The only fact we have to work with is the immediate retake. Everything else is perceptions or assumptions.
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
That isn’t what the student reported. Why are you, who wasn’t there, making up a narrative counter to the student that was?
Is there other inappropriate behavior where you would make up a fake narrative to undermine the student and protect the teacher?
Not a single one of us was in the classroom. The MOTHER wasn’t in the classroom.
The only fact we have to work with is the immediate retake. Everything else is perceptions or assumptions.
The fact of insisting a returned sick kid take a quiz against policy doesn’t register?
Also, it wasn’t immediate. It was offered after the fact. If thats the only fact that matters to you, you should be precise.
If you want to garner trust in teachers, you cannot reflexively defend the bad ones and undermine their victims. You will become part of the problem not the solution.
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
That isn’t what the student reported. Why are you, who wasn’t there, making up a narrative counter to the student that was?
Is there other inappropriate behavior where you would make up a fake narrative to undermine the student and protect the teacher?
Not a single one of us was in the classroom. The MOTHER wasn’t in the classroom.
The only fact we have to work with is the immediate retake. Everything else is perceptions or assumptions.
The fact of insisting a returned sick kid take a quiz against policy doesn’t register?
Also, it wasn’t immediate. It was offered after the fact. If thats the only fact that matters to you, you should be precise.
If you want to garner trust in teachers, you cannot reflexively defend the bad ones and undermine their victims. You will become part of the problem not the solution.
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
That isn’t what the student reported. Why are you, who wasn’t there, making up a narrative counter to the student that was?
Is there other inappropriate behavior where you would make up a fake narrative to undermine the student and protect the teacher?
Not a single one of us was in the classroom. The MOTHER wasn’t in the classroom.
The only fact we have to work with is the immediate retake. Everything else is perceptions or assumptions.
The fact of insisting a returned sick kid take a quiz against policy doesn’t register?
Also, it wasn’t immediate. It was offered after the fact. If thats the only fact that matters to you, you should be precise.
If you want to garner trust in teachers, you cannot reflexively defend the bad ones and undermine their victims. You will become part of the problem not the solution.
You know what would make it easier for teacher to keep track of things like this? If less students were absent on a daily basis. 3-4 kids absent over 5 classes adds up and it’s hard to manage.
My biggest concern in this entire exchange is that the parent's maturity level and grasp on appropriate English vocabulary is so compromised. Calling anyone a jerk or an idiot, let alone calling multiple people idiots, is alarming.
Anonymous wrote:You know what would make it easier for teacher to keep track of things like this? If less students were absent on a daily basis. 3-4 kids absent over 5 classes adds up and it’s hard to manage.
If only this was something automatic..like…in an app or something, to which the teacher has unfettered access…
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
Days ago we got a description of what the child says happened, which was that they asked to take it later and were told no, and that a retest was only offered after they failed. Why are you inventing scenarios without reading what’s already been posted?
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
Days ago we got a description of what the child says happened, which was that they asked to take it later and were told no, and that a retest was only offered after they failed. Why are you inventing scenarios without reading what’s already been posted?
+1 Yes and it’s not like you can just try the quiz and see how you do. The quiz was based on reading a specific section in a textbook which my child missed (they read it in class on Friday and then had notes/homework over the weekend on it) and had been unable to do due to illness. My child was not caught up with makeup work at that point and had communicated that to the teacher.
1) Child was out sick and didn’t have access to the work.
2) Child returned to school and took a quiz they were upreared for because the teacher told them to take the quiz even without access to the work.
3) Child was upset because the child was unrepared. This most likely caused some distress for the child, no idea how much.
4) Child failed the quiz
5) Teacher allowed a retake and the child did fine on it.
The parent is upset that the kid had to take the first quiz, because the kid had been out sick, didn’t have access to the material, and the kid was distressed at having failed a quiz. The parent is still worked up about this even though the kid took a make u and did fine. Or, alternatively, they posted this as an example of teachers not being perfect and their being annoyed that the teacher caused their kid some extra stress.
The parent can use this as a teaching tool for herself and her kid, people are not perfect but you took the make up and did fine. Maybe the teacher thought the student had access to the material and had looked at it. Maybe the teacher thought that the kid would be fine on the quiz and didn’t want the kid sitting there doing nothing while the rest of the class took the quiz. Maybe the teacher made a mistake. But, quizzes are part of the 10% of a grade and doing poorly on one is not going to sink your grade long term. And, in the long run, the kid retook the quiz and there was no harm done.
This exactly. This happens all the time though. And causes stress to kids who were genuinely sick. I would love to see a bit more compassion from high school teachers. Especially when many of them take off the week before winter break. Which goes back to the original topic.
High school teacher here. I’ve learned that when you give people kindness and compassion, they expect the well to be bottomless. Teachers give and give and give and give.
- a teacher who has taken one personal day in the past couple of years to drop off a kid from college. No vacations here. (This, by the way, is what most teachers do since it’s harder to take leave than it is to stay at work. Who are all these teachers taking week long vacations?)
Like… Asking people to support teachers for example? Well should be bottomless?
The poster’s kid already got sympathy in a form of an immediate retake without any questions asked. Seems as if this teacher is already being quite compassionate. I’m guessing the teacher was compassionate toward the kid in the classroom as well, but mom isn’t going to acknowledge that.
This is a non-issue in a profession that deals with real issues every day. Yes, teachers are compassionate, and we have to spend our limited emotional currency on students to the point we have none left for our own families. I have compassion for the child in this situation, but very little for the mother who has been quite insulting.
Following county policy isn’t “compassionate”. You seem to be mistaking the floor for the ceiling.
So the teacher made a mistake. Would you like her publicly flogged? A written reprimand in her file? What about fired?
The mom has already come online to call her a “jerk” and anybody standing up for her “idiots”… so I’m guessing mom would be thrilled with one of the options above.
Or she can move on and realize the teacher is a human making thousands of decisions a day. She made a bad call on this one and corrected it. Does she deserve mom’s continued ire?
And is anyone left wondering why teachers are fleeing this profession? Dealing with this?
This is the first acknowledgement you’ve made that the teacher was wrong. Has the teacher acknowledged that and apologized to the student? That’s the first step in everyone moving on.
If teachers “flee the profession” because of accountability for their mistakes, I pray they don’t go into medicine…
Two things:
There are multiple posters on this site. I HAVE mentioned it as a mistake. And I bet the teacher did apologize or acknowledge the situation. The raging mom (you?) were not in the classroom and likely has no clue what transpired. Seems the student has moved on, so I’m guessing everything was above board and okay.
And no teacher is afraid of accountability, but if we lose our heads over every little thing that happens during our RIDICULOUSLY busy and stressful days with no break, we won’t make it to the last period of the day. So we learn to triage and handle things by level of importance. Isn’t that… medical terminology. Huh. Maybe we’d be very good at that profession, too.
Nope not my kid. Just someone with the common sense to know you don’t make a kid who has been out for two days take a quiz about it— and a FCPS parent who knows it violates policy.
Good luck on the MCATS! Please treat your future patients with more respect than this student was treated with!
The teacher wouldnt know your kid had been out for two days since your kid only missed one day ofmthe teacher's class. Additionally, if you think a teacher will remember, on Tuesday, who was absent the previous Friday, you have extremely unrealistic and unreasonable expectations.
The parent said the student told the teacher before the quiz. If the teacher didn’t believe the student for some reason, it’s easily confirmed. Teacher was too lazy to check and got it wrong. An apology is owed as well as the makeup. Nothing complicated here.
Try teaching for just one day. Just ONE DAY. You know how it’s difficult dealing with 2-3 kids at home, tracking all of their work? Consider how challenging it is to track 150 students at once.
The teacher did all that’s expected. Period. There’s no need for public humiliation, etc. The idea that some posters here need the teacher to SUFFER and SUFFER LONG for something that was so easily reconciled is really discouraging.
How are we going to keep people willing to teach if one ridiculously minor misstep means they must endure this amount of nonsense from a vindictive parent? (And again… does the student even care?)
You think apologizing when you’re wrong is “public humiliation” and that being expected to do so is “SUFFER(ing)”?
That’s…really dramatic.
No, the PAGES of discussion here is the public humiliation, as well as the multiple insults written by the mother.
For all we know, the teacher did apologize. Heck, she clearly was willing to do twice as much work to help the child out.
You know what I did when my doctor’s office made a records mistake recently? I sent a message to my doctor, who promptly replied and said she would fix it. She didn’t apologize, and I’m not sure why I’d need one. I just wanted the paperwork fixed, and that was a bigger deal than this because it was medical records.
I didn’t come here to insult her. I moved on.
Here it’s your doctor’s office.
And also the dr mistake was corrected immediately once it was known. This teacher knew the kid was absent (kid explained and advocated), and yet still proceeded to go against the policy and make the kid take the quiz….Make it make sense!
And, teacher may have said (assuming kid actually protested and advocated against the quiz--which may or may not be true) to go ahead and take it you may do better than you think.
I know that way back when I was in high school, being absent prior to test would have meant you still take the test.
I really do not understand why mom is so stressed about this.
I’m not the mom, but would been annoyed because the 2026-2026 rules weren’t followed after the student alerted the teacher to their mistake. Most parents (and good teachers) don’t recreationally stress out sick kids by making them fail quizzes they had no way to prepare for and by policy don’t have to take.
The number of teachers claiming this is fine is kind of disturbing. I’ve only encountered one teacher who would behave this way IRL (and was constantly overruled by the principal)
Oddly the teachers on this thread are now silent in response to this well written, rational response. Guess they’re truly stumped and out of ideas on how to spin this so Mom is automatically wrong and the teacher is automatically right.
The response you’re glazing so hard was written at 9 pm on a Saturday. Maybe, just maybe, people were out living their lives and not on DCUM on a Saturday night to respond as fast as you hoped 😂
And maybe, just maybe, they decided a teacher who violated policy was actually wrong and they got tired of/can no longer defend them.
Some of you need to care about this site so much less 😭 genuinely who gives such a shit about one kid in FCPS having to do a quiz retake due to a teacher mistake that was easily resolved. Hells bells.
Considering the pages and pages of responses trying to justify the teacher’s actions by fellow teachers, trying to invalidate Mom/child’s experiences, I’d say a lot. Many teachers were enraged and throwing a tantrum when Mom dared to complain.
I’m one of the teachers.
I never defended the teacher’s actions. I defended the teacher against the mom’s original language. Does a mistake mean that the mom gets to label them a “jerk” and anybody questioning her an “idiot”? Absolutely not. That’s why the mother doesn’t have my sympathy; her rudeness in original posts shows no grace. I don’t have room in my life to accommodate this from an adult.
Mom can complain, but keep personal attacks out of it. And also try to find an ounce of grace for a teacher who makes many hundreds of decisions a day. She’ll get most right and a couple wrong, because she is HUMAN. She corrected it, but that wasn’t enough. Mom had to come here and insult her. I’m still not sure what mom thought she’d get out of her insults. Time can’t be rewritten and the action can’t be taken away. It’s over. So unless you are going to lodge an official complaint because of the teacher’s mistake, move on.
Ok. So you are one of the idiots. As I explained earlier (lol perfect example), I never called anyone who questioned me an idiot. I called people idiots who claimed I never explained how many days my child missed (as if that meant there was more to the story) when I had already in fact given the details on the thread (they just didn’t bother reading the thread carefully).
The teacher didn’t make a mistake. They purposely made my kid take a quiz after being told by my child they had been out sick and they purposely violated policy. That is a jerk move. Please explain why that is a mistake rather than being a jerk.
Having BEEN in the teacher’s situation, it is VERY easy to see what happened:
“Oh, you were out! Feeling better? How do you feel about trying the quiz anyway? If it doesn’t work out, you can take a retake.”
How do I know that’s likely what happened? Because the teacher gave an immediate retake.
This isn’t a “jerk” move. This is a teacher who threw the child TWO chances. When the first didn’t work, she immediately pivoted.
Should she have? Eh. Up for discussion. But was it malice or the action of a “jerk”? No.
And your casual defense of your own poor behavior does you no favors. It’s rather unappealing.
- an “idiot” (like we’re 12? What’s up with the insults?)
Days ago we got a description of what the child says happened, which was that they asked to take it later and were told no, and that a retest was only offered after they failed. Why are you inventing scenarios without reading what’s already been posted?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}