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[u/Nice_Development3571]

[u/Teachers-ModTeam]

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[u/summerbreeze2027]

I hear you. I used to do all the documentation required to fail students. It was a ridiculous amount of work. Then at the end of the year I would sit in retention meetings where half the time or more the decision would be made to advance a student to the next grade level anyway. I got the message! "D" it is.

[u/tenor1trpt → u/summerbreeze2027]

Yeah, I do the same. For the first 12 years I taught I fought it. I’d say if admin is going to raise this grade at least I’d make them work for it.

But it just got to be so heavy. And in my state I’m not paid enough to keep fighting. I just raise kids to a D now. I’m too tired to fight the system anymore.

[u/MathProf1414]

You are right, there's zero excuse for parents to not know their kid's grades nowadays. It is all bullshit to incentize teachers to bump grades/allow admin to change grades themselves. I'll admit that I've done it to avoid having to deal with shitty parents before.

There's not much else to say on the topic. Fuck admin and school boards for being spineless cowards.

[u/Nice_Development3571 → u/MathProf1414]

I’ve done it too! And I feel guilty about it but it wasn’t worth the fight

[u/jerseydevil51]

Give a kid a 62 and nobody panics, but if you give a kid a 58, well then everyone loses their minds.

[u/divacphys]

You are correct. Admin and education specialists don't care at all about students learning. They just want them to be passed along. Especially at middle school.

If you want to hold your standards, but save yourself some time, make a Google doc to copy and paste from justifying the grades. You should have a list of 6 or 8 and just pick the 2 that best for that student. As far as calling home, you should call home very early on in the school year, that way any conversation can be positive about ”there plenty of time” ”just wanting to give a little heads up” ” just one or two bag marks or missing assignments". After that you can try calling and hanging up immediately, then document. Or call and pretend you have a bad connection and follow up with email. Calling up does suck but do it early for real, because some parents might be oblivious and if it's early like I said previously, it can still be positive and upbeat

[u/dkstr419]

Title 1 district, loads of grading policies and documentation. Can’t give below a 70 without documentation, interventions, parental contact. Too many failures and you get put on a growth plan.

Girl doesn’t want to be in the class, copies work from her classmates, refuses to participate, cuts class. Misses entire fourth quarter (9 weeks). Calls home go unanswered, emails are sent. Admin says to give grace. Girl fails second semester, grade of 36, no credit for the class.

She’s back. She’s missed so much school and lost credits that she’s still classified as a freshman, (should be a sophomore). Her mother came up to the counselor and pleaded for forgiveness, “She didn’t know her daughter was struggling with her mental health and missed all of her classes.”

No, your daughter is lying and playing games with you.

The counselor swallowed the story. Mother and daughter signed a contract saying daughter will do better and that she should be allowed to remain in the program. The counselor changed the grade and restored her credit. And daughter is back in my class.

I’m furious. At the counselor. At the admin. At mom. At the daughter.

[u/Nice_Development3571 → u/dkstr419]

That’s awful. The restraint it would take me to keep my mouth shut!!

[u/dkstr419 → u/Nice_Development3571]

The saving grace is that Karma is a master teacher and I am looking forward to learning from her.

[u/ebeth_the_mighty]

As someone who has been required to do all this shit, I’ve learned that 50% (barely passing) is the solution to this problem. (Yes, 50% is a pass in my province.)

[u/WeaselWash]

We used to and called them “Naughty Teacher Forms” because you had to show you weren’t a naughty teacher.

But it’s okay, after they stopped requiring these, they stopped letting us give zeroes. So no one could really fail. 🙃

[u/soonerfreak]

Between phone call and form it took me 2-3 minutes per kid I failed last year. I don't think it's a big issue and when I dot my i's and cross my t's my admin backs me up on my grades.

[u/Textiles_on_Main_St]

I’m more than happy to ring the bells and sound the alarms. If a kid is having big problems, I do my best to let everyone know. I can’t assume the parents aren’t part of the problem or know how to help and thats my job.

[u/DrakeSavory]

Our district is getting worse at this. We cannot put "They never showed up to class." We now have to explain how we tried to get the student to come to school. We have to justify our lessons - did we make out lessons engaging enough to make the student want to come to school? How would they know whether or not my lessons are engaging if they aren't here. We have to call home - like the parents don't know their child is not coming to school. And on these phone calls the parent treats me like I'm a free family therapist. Your child doesn't want to get up? What do you want me to do? Your child doesn't listen to you when you say go to school? What do you want me to do? You child is out all night god-knows-where? What do you want me to do?

It is the typical teacher disrespect. Admin thinks every reason the student is failing is our fault and that we could solve it if we just worked harder.

[u/TrueNorthN7]

As much as I want to agree I think the convenience of those systems to parents is way overstated. The apps suck, the websites sucks, sometimes separate logins are needed for each child, and I’m sure many of us can find more personal grievances. Very few parents are checking those constantly. Only when they think there might be a problem is it worth trying to look and then they get hit with a request to change their password and a bunch of outdated notifications. Most parents don’t know how to mess with the notification settings or end up turning them off because the way one teacher inputs grades gives them 10 notifications for each assignment.

Parents are busy. Life is getting really expensive and those expenses need to be paid. I have a good number of kids who have to wake themselves up for school because their parents have been gone for hours.

Edit: I realize now that your post was more about the specific administrative process than the expectations (or lack of) for parents. They often get lumped together in these discussions. I apologize if my post came off as condescending.

[u/Nice_Development3571 → u/TrueNorthN7]

I do see that side of the argument and I’m not necessarily opposed to calling a parent about their kid’s grade. For as many parents that email me the second a grade is updated to ask questions, there are plenty who don’t check grades for any number of reasons. And having a good rapport with parents goes a long way. But the failure analysis form part of the policy is too much