Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teacher is not the problem in this picture.

He ended up with E for the semester for Spanish 1A. I just wish he would've emailed me or give my son extra credit so he could've passed the semester. He did but doing the 1st marking period, but improved a lot doing the second marking period.

You have 24/7 access to grades. Why didn’t you check in, especially if he had an E the first marking period.

This is what is wrong in education right now, there’s no accountability on the student and parent end.

Do your job so that I can do my job

Anonymous wrote:TIL that there is a letter grade E. In my high school it was A, B, C, or F for anything below a 70. In college I learned that some schools let you "pass" with a D, which was surprising to me. Now we have Es?

We’ve had E’s for over 20 years.

Anonymous wrote:Will you be okay with a teacher didn't change a 59.10% to D?

Some teachers are more forgiving than others.

Next semester, make sure your child shows you his grades weekly so this does not happen again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extra credit is illegal in MCPS.

Was this 59% average, or was this half 70% and half 0% rounded up to 50%?

Passing a class is punishment, not reward. Why would you want your kid to move on to a higher level class they aren’t ready for? They’ll fail that too. Regroup, try again, with a better plan with supports and checkins.

NP- I didn’t know that extra credit was illegal in the county. Is this new? My kids have never needed it, but I used to use it when I was a student.

No, this isn't new. I like doing silly bonus questions on my tests and have been teaching here for 5 years+ and since I came to this county, I haven't been able to do so, as bonus points are also illegal.

I’ve always thought MCPS’s prohibition of extra credit was stupid and counterproductive (although not as disastrous as some of their other grading policies). Some of my kids’ teachers got around it by offering “optional assignments”. I don’t know if the renaming strategy would have passed official scrutiny, but I certainly wasn’t going to report them.

Isn’t the opportunity to redo assignments essentially extra credit?

2 things

First of all, in the case of my kids, these were new assignments rather than the opportunity to redo assignments. I do think you could implement it in a way to offer the chance to redo/make corrections an optional assignment as well, but you’d probably have to extend the “assignment” to the whole class.

Secondly, I agree that it is exactly a way to offer extra credit. The teachers realized that sometimes extra credit can be helpful, whether to assist struggling students or to incentivize students to explore the subject deeper, and found a way to provide that opportunity. In my experience, it’s only one of the many (and actually one of the more trivial) ways that teachers work around the stupidity of MCPS to actually educate the kids.

Anonymous wrote:These responses are complete jokes. Go to the special needs forum and you’ll get more productive advice. My IEP 6th grader will likely get 3 Ds. and it’s not because he’s lazy or because we don’t provide him with the supports he needs.

This isn’t a special needs issue It’s a lack of effort by both the kid and parent. I have a kid with many learning disabilities and an IEP. You have to actively NOT try to get an E. An E. I think OP would be thrilled with a D.

It’s 100% lack of effort

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it a quarter grade or a semester grade?

Quarter grade, but got E the 1st quarter so his grade are E E.
LD student with ADHD taking Spanish 1A.

What was your reaction to the first E?

I agree with this. When your DC got an E in the first quarter, that was when you needed to take action. You should have asked for a parent-teacher conference, asked about whether IEP was being followed, discussed what DC needed to do in the second quarter to bring the grade up and then you needed to augment at home to ensure that your DC was doing what was needed at home, to make sure she was prepared for class and to ensure that she was doing the work at home.

E followed by E means that there was a warning, but neither the student nor the parents felt the need to heed the warning and make changes to what was done in the second quarter.

I also agree that giving your child an unearned D is actually going to be worse for them than having the E. Ywillour child has not learned enough to advance to Spanish 2, so getting a change to a D will only advance them into a course that they are unprepared for. She will work twice as hard in Spanish 2 and still fail the class. That becomes demoralizing. She would do better to accept the failing grade, retake Spanish 1 and do better the second time.

Agree with this. It doesn’t take a lot to earn a D. If the student has special needs there are things that can be done or taken into account prior to grades coming out. Teachers should not be required to give unearned grades after the fact.

Foriegn language is not even a required for graduation which means this class could have been dropped. Blaming the teacher is unproductive.

Yes it is a graduation requirement

DP - no it's not. There are other tracks you can do in place of foreign language.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it a quarter grade or a semester grade?

Quarter grade, but got E the 1st quarter so his grade are E E.
LD student with ADHD taking Spanish 1A.

What was your reaction to the first E?

I agree with this. When your DC got an E in the first quarter, that was when you needed to take action. You should have asked for a parent-teacher conference, asked about whether IEP was being followed, discussed what DC needed to do in the second quarter to bring the grade up and then you needed to augment at home to ensure that your DC was doing what was needed at home, to make sure she was prepared for class and to ensure that she was doing the work at home.

E followed by E means that there was a warning, but neither the student nor the parents felt the need to heed the warning and make changes to what was done in the second quarter.

I also agree that giving your child an unearned D is actually going to be worse for them than having the E. Ywillour child has not learned enough to advance to Spanish 2, so getting a change to a D will only advance them into a course that they are unprepared for. She will work twice as hard in Spanish 2 and still fail the class. That becomes demoralizing. She would do better to accept the failing grade, retake Spanish 1 and do better the second time.

Agree with this. It doesn’t take a lot to earn a D. If the student has special needs there are things that can be done or taken into account prior to grades coming out. Teachers should not be required to give unearned grades after the fact.

Foriegn language is not even a required for graduation which means this class could have been dropped. Blaming the teacher is unproductive.

Yes it is a graduation requirement

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extra credit is illegal in MCPS.

Was this 59% average, or was this half 70% and half 0% rounded up to 50%?

Passing a class is punishment, not reward. Why would you want your kid to move on to a higher level class they aren’t ready for? They’ll fail that too. Regroup, try again, with a better plan with supports and checkins.

NP- I didn’t know that extra credit was illegal in the county. Is this new? My kids have never needed it, but I used to use it when I was a student.

No, this isn't new. I like doing silly bonus questions on my tests and have been teaching here for 5 years+ and since I came to this county, I haven't been able to do so, as bonus points are also illegal.

I’ve always thought MCPS’s prohibition of extra credit was stupid and counterproductive (although not as disastrous as some of their other grading policies). Some of my kids’ teachers got around it by offering “optional assignments”. I don’t know if the renaming strategy would have passed official scrutiny, but I certainly wasn’t going to report them.

Isn’t the opportunity to redo assignments essentially extra credit?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teacher is not the problem in this picture.

He ended up with E for the semester for Spanish 1A. I just wish he would've emailed me or give my son extra credit so he could've passed the semester. He did but doing the 1st marking period, but improved a lot doing the second marking period.

How would emailing you given him a D? Sorry, extra credit is against MCPS policy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it a quarter grade or a semester grade?

Quarter grade, but got E the 1st quarter so his grade are E E.
LD student with ADHD taking Spanish 1A.

What was your reaction to the first E?

I agree with this. When your DC got an E in the first quarter, that was when you needed to take action. You should have asked for a parent-teacher conference, asked about whether IEP was being followed, discussed what DC needed to do in the second quarter to bring the grade up and then you needed to augment at home to ensure that your DC was doing what was needed at home, to make sure she was prepared for class and to ensure that she was doing the work at home.

E followed by E means that there was a warning, but neither the student nor the parents felt the need to heed the warning and make changes to what was done in the second quarter.

I also agree that giving your child an unearned D is actually going to be worse for them than having the E. Ywillour child has not learned enough to advance to Spanish 2, so getting a change to a D will only advance them into a course that they are unprepared for. She will work twice as hard in Spanish 2 and still fail the class. That becomes demoralizing. She would do better to accept the failing grade, retake Spanish 1 and do better the second time.

Agree with this. It doesn’t take a lot to earn a D. If the student has special needs there are things that can be done or taken into account prior to grades coming out. Teachers should not be required to give unearned grades after the fact.

Foriegn language is not even a required for graduation which means this class could have been dropped. Blaming the teacher is unproductive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op you haven't answered whether or not there is an IEP and if it was followed. If that were the case you should have started with that.

A 59.10 does not round up.

I am not sure if the IEP was followed, and not sure how we can tell if the IEP is followed in every class.

As I suggested before, look into whether you can contest the grade. You have to do it quickly.

What happened for us was that my son was given some supplemental work (don’t recall what) and a month to finish it. The grade he got at that point was his final grade. They did much better with the IEP after that point.

Another tip if languages are tough. While kids need two years of language credits, it does not have to be the same language. A kid can take first year of two different languages to meet the requirement.

There are also alternative tracks where language is not required at all - like the child development track.

These responses are complete jokes. Go to the special needs forum and you’ll get more productive advice. My IEP 6th grader will likely get 3 Ds. and it’s not because he’s lazy or because we don’t provide him with the supports he needs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it a quarter grade or a semester grade?

Quarter grade, but got E the 1st quarter so his grade are E E.
LD student with ADHD taking Spanish 1A.

What was your reaction to the first E?

I agree with this. When your DC got an E in the first quarter, that was when you needed to take action. You should have asked for a parent-teacher conference, asked about whether IEP was being followed, discussed what DC needed to do in the second quarter to bring the grade up and then you needed to augment at home to ensure that your DC was doing what was needed at home, to make sure she was prepared for class and to ensure that she was doing the work at home.

E followed by E means that there was a warning, but neither the student nor the parents felt the need to heed the warning and make changes to what was done in the second quarter.

I also agree that giving your child an unearned D is actually going to be worse for them than having the E. Ywillour child has not learned enough to advance to Spanish 2, so getting a change to a D will only advance them into a course that they are unprepared for. She will work twice as hard in Spanish 2 and still fail the class. That becomes demoralizing. She would do better to accept the failing grade, retake Spanish 1 and do better the second time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op you haven't answered whether or not there is an IEP and if it was followed. If that were the case you should have started with that.

A 59.10 does not round up.

I am not sure if the IEP was followed, and not sure how we can tell if the IEP is followed in every class.

It doesn’t sound like either of you are engaged in school. Sorry.

100% this. Your kid should absolutely know whether his IEP is being followed. I get that some teachers don’t do a good job following them but your kid should know if they are or aren’t.

Sounds like neither of you are doing anything or even have a clue what’s going on in class. This is a you problem. You kid deserves both Es.

If you put in the slightest bit of effort you can pass. Clearly he’s done absolutely nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be delighted my kid was being held responsible.

YUP! Same here. Maybe they'll take the class seriously next time since they didn't pass.

You are jerks. Some kids are barely capable of getting through high school yet in our society, you need that diploma to get a job that pays enough to live on and provides the opportunity for affordable health insurance. It sounds like OP’s kid is one of those kids. A failing grade does not necessarily mean a kid didn’t work hard in the class. Sounds like your kids don’t struggle and you should be thankful instead of condescending in a situation that is likely nothing remotely similar to your life experience.

OP, there’s a period during which you can challenge a grade. I’ve done that successfully in several classes where the IEP was not followed. There’s a deadline though so if you believe that is the case, you should look into that now.

It’s a signal to employers that the potential worker can follow directions and complete assigned tasks. That’s why employers want it for even menial jobs. Lying about their abilities now might get him hired, but it won’t help your kid stay employed.

IDK, my kid has been employed for almost 10 years and never lost a job. He has great work ethics and is a wonderful person. In fact he may have even worked on your car before he got his government job. He may have struggled in school but he doesn’t struggle in life. He passed all of the tests necessary to get his CDL even though he barely passed Spanish, never got above a D, except in automotive classes, and having passed some classes only because I contested grades. None of this had any negative effect on his life at all.

Not everyone benefits from the cookie cutter education approach. And I do get that employers gain benefit from hiring people with HS diplomas. But that’s why we need to help kids who are capable of being productive members of society get their HS diploma me. And we can’t forget that there is harm in making a struggling kid unnecessarily repeat a class.