To get them motivated just announce in the beginning, "hey kids, write your name so we know who to give 50% to. I give up on the 50 % rule. Most of these idiots will fail the tests and quizzes so unless your admin wants inflation pass along shenanigans they will fail. Just send an email to admin am requesting that if they want grade fraud they do it themselves. That will also be a good documentation if you have to sue them later for wrongful termination.

Anonymous wrote:FCPS has a hybrid policy. If kids do not turn in the assignment, it is a 0. If they turn in something, even if it is incorrect, they get a 50%. The idea is that it gives a kid some room to recover their grade.

My teacher friends tell me that most of those 0s stay 0s, kids are not turning in something to get the 50%. It is possible that some schools are keeping the 50% for all kids but I am hearing less of that happening.

The 50% came out of COVID and is slowly rolling back.

Technically MCPS has the same policy. You can also, allegedly, give a zero for work turned in that doesn’t show an attempt to meet minimum standards for the assignment. Less than half of the work completed could get a zero. Writing a book report about a spicy YA novel rather than the assigned analysis of two non-fiction texts could get a zero. In theory.
In practice, you are expected to work with the student and parents to try to remedy the gap. At my school, it is three well-documented interventions over the course of three weeks. No one has time for that.

Anonymous wrote:

This is not true. FCPS' floor is 50% for everything. I am not allowed to put a 0 in my gradebook. I can put in an "NTI" (not turned in), but it is still a 50.

This must be your school then. It is not a blanket FCPS policy. Where I teach (an FCPS high school), if a student doesn't turn in work, it gets an NTI but that grade is a 0. At the end of the quarter, if the quarter grade is less than 50%, I have to raise it to 50% but that is not very common (maybe 1 kid a quarter).

That's interesting. I thought FCPS was trying to be more consistent across the whole county.

What happens when the students are not just not doing the work but cussing the teacher out, swinging punches, actively trying to destroy and ruining the lessons for everyone else everyday due to their own degraded literacy/inadequacy . Do we roll over and give everyone good grades bc admin is too spineless to help enforce structure. Should we teachers just sit back and do nothing or ignore the chaos because we need our jobs, insurance, paycheck and we don't want to engage in fights.

This is not true. FCPS' floor is 50% for everything. I am not allowed to put a 0 in my gradebook. I can put in an "NTI" (not turned in), but it is still a 50.

This must be your school then. It is not a blanket FCPS policy. Where I teach (an FCPS high school), if a student doesn't turn in work, it gets an NTI but that grade is a 0. At the end of the quarter, if the quarter grade is less than 50%, I have to raise it to 50% but that is not very common (maybe 1 kid a quarter).

There was an expression at my MCOS school. We would say to the kids to get them to motivated for an assignment. It was, " put your names in the top of the paper so we know who to give 50% to.

Anonymous wrote:FCPS has a hybrid policy. If kids do not turn in the assignment, it is a 0. If they turn in something, even if it is incorrect, they get a 50%. The idea is that it gives a kid some room to recover their grade.

My teacher friends tell me that most of those 0s stay 0s, kids are not turning in something to get the 50%. It is possible that some schools are keeping the 50% for all kids but I am hearing less of that happening.

The 50% came out of COVID and is slowly rolling back.

This is not true. FCPS' floor is 50% for everything. I am not allowed to put a 0 in my gradebook. I can put in an "NTI" (not turned in), but it is still a 50.

I would like to see a standardized test, that is scantron graded, as the final exam that is worth 50% of your grade. That makes accountability and statistical transparency a priority as well as it allows a fair, just, and level playing field untethered to influenced of bias and manipulation like PTA groups, parents that want extra time or special supports or extra credits to ensure their kid gets an A etc.

Put on top of that cameras in the classroom and we will have a recipe for corruption free schools that makes security and learning a priority.