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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pp:

But when the prior teacher stops working weekend, threads are made about her in the FCPS forum on how her grades aren’t done in a timely manner.

If I want my job to be a 40 hour per week job, there would be zero grading done. My planning periods are enough time to plan, not grade. I can create and copy one lesson in an hour if I’m super fast. I have two preps on the block, so if I keep up with that I’m on track. The other 30 minutes is recording SPED data, IEPs/504s, contacting home, contacting absent kids, preparing work for kids who are going to be out, etc.

All grading is done outside of school hours. I am currently grading AP math tests. The average test takes 4-5 minutes to grade, and I have 92 students in that course this year. Best case scenario, that’s 6 hours of grading. Worst case, nearly 8. I also have algebra tests to grade. I try to stagger them so only one prep tests each week, but that’s 6-8 hours of work every weekend, and that’s if I never grade homework/class work/quizzes.

Tell me how to be more efficient. All multiple choice? Have kids grade each other’s work? Make assessments 5 questions instead of 20? I’m guessing you can see why that is all awful.

When I ask my department how to get better, they all admit to working weekends. I’m not unique.

How can it be better? Class sizes of 20 vs 32. Additional staff hired purely to tutor/catch up/assess absent kids so I don’t have to. 4 courses to teach instead of 5 so I have a period to grade. If I had 80 students and 2 hours a day to plan/grade, it would be amazing. Instead I have 150 and an hour.  But the reality is that’s not going to happen, so more people are going to quit and 10 years from now math instruction will be on a computer and my only job will be to run around and answer questions, because that’s the only way I can support the 250 kids who will be on my roster.[/quote]

Making sure that you don’t need to deal with disruptive students in your classes, and starting to track students so the kids are at the same level and you only need to teach one class at a time, would allow you to do some prep and some grading during class time while the kids are working, right?[/quote]

No, that wouldn’t change anything at the high school level. Disruptive kids tend not to come to class, and they are already tracked (AP/honors/gen Ed/double block). I have absolutely no behavior issues on my roster this year. I just have 150 good kids that I cannot adequately support because it is impossible to give meaningful instruction and feedback to that many kids in 40 hours a week.[/quote]

How were teachers doing it in the past? I know they graded written work with good feedback. Were class sizes really that much smaller?[/quote]

I am only talking about math, because that’s what I teach, and I can only really compare it to my own high school experience.

Teachers taught 4/6 blocks in my high school. I teach 6/8 (5+advisory which truly is another prep).
My math tests were straight multiple choice, graded within 30 seconds of turning them in. Parents and admins would wring our necks if we did that.
Classes were capped at 25. Mine are 35 (overall load max is 150)

Biggest difference though is the idea of continual demonstration of mastery. (Which is good! I agree with it! But it’s a huge time suck) When I was in high school, if you failed the unit 1 test you were just screwed. Today, I have to meet with that child, do some form of remediation (corrections, additional practice), and then write and give a second chance assessment. Writing a second AP level test is easily 2 hours of work. Administering it and grading it is 2 more (out of class) hours. Maintaining a list of kids who missed the original assessment, arranging a time to take it, monitoring their retakes, etc is something that honestly justifies having an administrative assistant. I wish I could just hand a stack of tests to a testing coordinator and tell kids to arrange with a 3rd party to take missing assessments/retakes.[/quote]

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