Reply to 7 Math teachers are leaving Richard Montgomerry HS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My RM student reports that the 7 teachers are leaving in protest of certain policies.  Nothing specific to IB. They teach other classes too. He did not have enough specifics on the issues for me to repeat.  One related to the 50% rule but was not like they were taking a stand and not doing it. I am sure what I heard was not complete or totally accurate.[/quote]
I would normally ignore this type of thread, but there too many partial truths presented in a misleading manner that shouldn't stand.

The primary issue was over the grading and reporting policy https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/info/grading/0106.18_Grading%20procedures6-12%20(1).pdf and specifically 
[quote]When using points or percentages, a teacher assigns a grade no lower than 50 percent to the task/assessment. If a student does no work on the task/assessment, the teacher will assign a zero. If a teacher determines that the student did not attempt to meet the basic requirements of the task/assess-ment, the teacher may assign a zero.[/quote]
Note that this policy was put in place in 2006, and there have been teachers at RM who have disagreed with it ever since. The process many teachers in the math department were using was to put in actual quiz and test scores, even if lower than 50%, and not change it until the end of the quarter. This meant that students, parents, and administrators had no idea what the student's grade would be, and there have been complaints from parents about teachers not following the grading policy. The issue came to a head at the end of 1st semester and teachers were told directly that they must follow the policy and not enter any grade less than 50% in the gradebook. There were hard feelings about it, needless to say.

While people may be freaking about these math teachers because they are well known, you haven't been paying attention that [b]the math department has steadily been turning over several math teachers every year.[/b] This isn't unique this year. Anyway besides Ms. McDonald retiring, Mr. Chase is taking a promotion to department head at WJ, and another teacher is moving to Nevada. And perhaps it was time for some of the other teachers to move on to a different school.[/quote]

This is absolutely false. I have kids in RM IB since 2012, the last one would graduate in 2020. Chemistry and History department has taken the hit due to administration meddling over the last 3 years, but Math Department has been fairly steady. Mr. Chase is taking a promotion, but he did not chose to move out for that. He was in tears just yesterday, reading farewell letters...he had no intention to leave. Mrs. McDonald is taking early retirement. One of the teachers who is leaving asked the students to talk to parents about how this is not normal.

BTW,[b] RM administrators are in DCUM and write responses to these threads and meddle the pictures.[/b][/quote]
? How do you know this?  But even if they are, often times, I find that there are two sides to every story. No.. I'm not an RM admin. I am an RM  parent of a rising 9th grader.[/quote]

Yeah, and with this story no one's presenting either side.  I'm not buying that DCUM misinformation, comes from school admins.  This site generates muddles without insider assistance.[/quote]

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