Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy online grades. (rant)

Our school district (the one in which I work AND the one which DD attends) has an online gradebook for the parents to see. It is a double edged sword: it's an awesome way to communicate with parents but you have to keep up with it and use it wisely.

Today, I nearly had a coronary. Two of DD's three teachers had been sitting on some grades and posted them all this morning. Apparently, DD didn't turn in a major project two weeks ago and it was worth two test grades. In another class, she has 12 (yes, that's TWELVE) zeroes for classwork. All twelve classwork assignments are scored zero.

I contacted the teachers right away and DD is currently seated at the table doing the assignments. It's going to be a long night.

But I'm so frustrated and angry! Yes, DD has the responsibility to do the assignments on time (and turn them in, which is usually the actual problem) but would you guys expect an email or a phone call from the teacher about something like this? The teachers had to know that the work was missing before today?!?!

Wow - as another teacher who also works at a school with the online grades, I know well the double edged sword part of the situation, but that is un-excusable.
We have a policy about how often we have to post grades and how quickly we have to return grades to students. And, yes, we would contact parents after just a few missed assignments, not 12! If it was the case that the teacher had gotten behind with marking and for some reason didn't know that she was missing that many assignments, the teacher should have immediately contacted you about them.

Zarfkitty,

That stinks! It will be a long night......for both of you.

My DD10, also in a highly gifted magnet, which does not post grades/assignments on line, but does give long term assignments with a future due date and expects the kids to manage it.

They give them Daily Assignment Notebooks and they are supposed to keep track of all of it there. We've had some long nights, too.

I finally told DD I wouldn't do it anymore, she was responsible and I could give a rat's behind if she flunked out. She knows this is not an empty threat because I would truly prefer to homeschool her. Problem solved. However, she is a teacher pleaser to the max. This approach would totally backfire with my youngest, whom I totally expect to be homeschooling at some point in the future, lol.

I am an adminstrator in a district with an online gradebook. Teachers are required to put in all tests in 48 hours, projects in 72 and any other assignments within one week of the due date. I would ream one of my teachers (privately of course!)if they pulled a stunt like that. In fact, one of our major complaints is that parents are often online checking so often that they'll be on while a teacher is entering grades and email to complain that their student hasn't received a score yet- sometimes within 2 min of the assignment being entered.

Here's a question... do you know if your school is posting the student's full name, birthdates, and grades online -- if this is on a server that is part of the school, that is in-house? or is this material posted online on some server elsewhere?

Do you even know?

I feel your pain zarfkitty, you should've been told if your child is missing assignments, etc...

BTDT, last 2 quarters with GS10! I finally told the teachers that GS10 has to take ownership of his schoolwork and I would no longer sign his planner if he had no involvement in filling it out. His assignment grades were painful to see, his tests were still A's.
I told GS10 if he turned in everything this quarter, and filled out his planner I would get him a DS Lite. GS10 does not respond to withdrawal of privileges, (except limiting The Simpsons) but responds to rewards. So far, so good -- this quarter. And he is feeling better about his organization, too.

Btw, does your child have a very messy desk at school? GS10 did, and when I implemented my new plan I went to school and cleaned out his desk & cubby. He was humiliated enough he's not letting it build up again, but now so bad that anyone teased him. His teacher really appreciated it, too.

Ignorant question OHG,

what's a ds lite?

Not OHG, but I think she means a Nintendo game.

I think I'm allowed to name it-- we use Powerschool which used to be owned by Apple but now is owned by Pearson. It used to be on a server housed by Apple when we were a demo site about 10 years ago. Now I believe, our district has the data on a server at the district office. It's not stored onsite at our school (other than in hard copy in the student cumulative files).

Dd#1's middle school posts grades online & some of her teachers are notoriously late in getting grades in. A lot of them do a really good job, but there have been some where up to 30-40% of the total points for that quarter aren't posted until days before the end of the quarter making it impossible to bring your grade up if you don't find out until just before the final grade is put in that you don't have the total you'd like.

On the other end of the coin, one of teachers put in so few grades by progress reports that the entire progress report grade was based off of one quiz and one in-class assignment. Dd was totally peeved b/c she had a B+ with just those two scores, but would have had an A or A- if all of the scores for that period had been entered before the reports were issued. I've assured her that progress report grades aren't calculated into her GPA, but we are getting close to quarter report cards and only one or two other grades have been entered for that class still. She's at least up to an A- with those, but it is frustrating to have so few grades counting toward the total b/c the teacher doesn't put them all in.

Zarfitty, I feel your pain. Online grades have caused me to lose a few years of my life as well. Your heart just drops to see that sort of stuff. My DS13 has a real issue with turning in work. In addition, his teachers only take late work for 1/2 credit so he can only get a 50 which is still a F, but at least is a little easier to average than a 0. From your DD being 10 I assume she is in elementary school and yes I would expect the teachers to be able to enter grades quicker. I hope you contacted them about your displeasure. From their perspective, Im sure they wonder how many parents even look at online grades. My DS is in middle school and with so many classes I do wonder how the teachers can get all the stuff graded and entered timely so I do allow a little more slack, but still there is usually one teacher out of the bunch who seems to need to enter several grades at once. I hope that once you contact the teachers even if they can't enter the grades quicker they could at least shoot you an email to be notified of missing assignments quicker.

This is a bit of different perspective but I have to say that I have very mixed feelings about online grades. I tend towards the school of thought that K-12 years are as much about cultivating organizational habits and personal responsibility as they are about anything else. While I do think that a teacher should communicate by phone/email/letter if a student is consistently late with, or missing assignments, I also think that there is an important lesson learned when a student misses deadlines and then sees the results on their report card. Eventually, IRL, we no one checks up on us. If we don't pay our bills on time, meet work deadlines, etc. we are faced with consequences. Some guru out there (maybe from Love and Logic?) talks about letting kids experience the consequences of their actions while they are young and the consequences are still "small". Relatively speaking, during the elementary and middle school years at least, the consequences ARE still small, even if they don't feel small to the child. My worry about online grade reporting is that it seems to shift the responsibility for staying on top of work/assignments to the parent and away from the child. I'm more than willing to add consequences to the natural consequences after my DD has experienced them (e.g. if she brings home a report card full of missed assignments, I'm willing to point out the results on her report card and let her know that until she makes up all assignments she will not have free time for other things). What I don't want to do is become her an excuse for not meeting her responsibilities ("but you didn't check my grades and tell me...."). Of course, so far she HATES being on the bad side of a teacher and it panics her into overcoming most of her organization flaws, so it's easy for me to take this position

Now that D is in high school, she has an id to look at her online grades herself. I gave her mine to use in middle school to encourage her to keep track. Sometimes teachers post upcoming assignments (tests, quizes) out there with no grade yet before they tell the class about the test! So it is a tool for D to use to see if something is coming up or if she has missed something. Sometimes I wish the teachers were more timely about posting grades, but all in all it has been a benefit for us. It only becomes all about the parents following up if we let it...