How is your school district handling the end of this academic year?

[nala]

As a teacher, I am super curious to see how your children’s school district or your district if you are a teacher, is handling the academic year and how you feel about it.

My district is still doing remote enrichment— we can’t hold kids accountable for any learning. Furthermore, all kids will pass their classes with a C or better. The grade assigned to them depends on their grade as of March 13th unless: they do enrichment work to improve it or unless they had a D or F, it will automatically become a C even if the student did or does nothing for 12 weeks. Most parents are happy and teachers not so much.

 

[KaeKae]

@nala
I am an Instructional Aide in an elementary school.
I haven't heard about how we are handling grades yet. But I have to say that it's quite an insult to the work you are doing to have every kid receive a C or better, even when doing nothing. Also an insult to the students who are still working hard to earn a good grade.

On the other hand, I know there are kids whose families aren't making sure the kids go to virtual classes, maybe have the needed web access, etc. This could be the parent is working non stop themselves, is sick, or doesn't care. Each case will be different.

This situation is so hard, the teachers I know are working their butts off and we aides are doing what we can to support them and the kids.

 

[chrono]

They are being graded as Complete or Incomplete.

 

[ItsMainelyYou]

Weirdly, mine are doing well under the new parameters. We have many teachers who continue to go out of their way to make a smooth transition. Online classes aren't entirely new in our area, so that was a blessing. The issue they face is that some students aren't participating/completing coursework at all. (including mine! cutting corners, but I catch them every time )
Mine are being graded as Incomplete, Complete, or Complete with Distinction.
My oldest is a bit miffed because his grades in accelerated and AP classes are avg. 4.1 and his fifteen yr old self wants recognition.
*I understand they may now keep numerical grades for his cohort just for this purpose.
The youngest doesn't care about grade point...she just wants Comp. with Distinction; or maybe that's me, whatever, that's how it's going down.

 

[House Cat]

My 14 year old son has hardly any work. He is being graded as complete/incomplete

 

[Gussie]

Meets expectations/doesn't meet expectations. My kids (elementary, middle school, and high school) have between 3-4 hours of work a day. Most of it is pretty easy and they rarely ask me for help. All 3 kids are "passing".

I know that it is not as rigorous as normal but I am ok with it. Their lives have been upended and it is a lot for kids to handle. I am trying to take this time to teach them other things (how to clean a toilet ! ). Each night I have one kid help me with dinner so they can learn a bit of cooking. They all have a long term self directed project that benefits us all. My son is building a rock wall along the path to the lake. My girls have a vegetable garden. Amazon is open for books anytime they want extra reading material. It is not "normal" but I really value this time. I love seeing my kids a bit more free to explore. Not being on a crazy schedule has really been good for us all.

 

[YadaYadaYada]

Distance learning for both our five and thirteen year old. Assignments for the older son are marked as complete or incomplete. Younger one has to complete assignments each day but there is no indication how those are being marked.

I will say that since starting this I have become acutely aware of how inappropriate the curriculum for kindergarten is. Instead of mastering one skill before moving on to another it is just multiple skills thrown at a child all at once.

An example of this is watching a video and then answering questions in complete sentences with appropriate punctuation with phonetic spelling for words they don't know. Instead of getting them to master writing and then teaching them to spell words correctly AND THEN moving on to writing sentences about stories.

Hey, what do I know, I'm not a teacher but to me it doesn't make sense.

 

[nala]

@nala
I am an Instructional Aide in an elementary school.
I haven't heard about how we are handling grades yet. But I have to say that it's quite an insult to the work you are doing to have every kid receive a C or better, even when doing nothing. Also an insult to the students who are still working hard to earn a good grade.

On the other hand, I know there are kids whose families aren't making sure the kids go to virtual classes, maybe have the needed web access, etc. This could be the parent is working non stop themselves, is sick, or doesn't care. Each case will be different.

This situation is so hard, the teachers I know are working their butts off and we aides are doing what we can to support them and the kids.

Agree. Finding the balance has been the most challenging aspect. I teach in a low income district and although we are not Covid impacted bc i personally reached out to all my kids and they are fine and they have the technology, many do not have the support from their parents to encourage them to keep working. A majority of them are happy with their C and are choosing not to continue learning.

 

[nala]

Weirdly, mine are doing well under the new parameters. We have many teachers who continue to go out of their way to make a smooth transition. Online classes aren't entirely new in our area, so that was a blessing. The issue they face is that some students aren't participating/completing coursework at all. (including mine! cutting corners, but I catch them every time )
Mine are being graded as Incomplete, Complete, or Complete with Distinction.
My oldest is a bit miffed because his grades in accelerated and AP classes are avg. 4.1 and his fifteen yr old self wants recognition.
*I understand they may now keep numerical grades for his cohort just for this purpose.
The youngest doesn't care about grade point...she just wants Comp. with Distinction; or maybe that's me, whatever, that's how it's going down.

If only my students’ parents were like you!!! Most of my students don’t have that reinforcement at home, so of my 160 students whom I initially had contact with, 130 have dropped out of instruction. I don’t take this personally because my colleagues are all experiencing the same attrition.

 

[nala]

My 14 year old son has hardly any work. He is being graded as complete/incomplete

Does he have hardly and work assigned? As a parent, how do you feel about this?

 

[nala]

Meets expectations/doesn't meet expectations. My kids (elementary, middle school, and high school) have between 3-4 hours of work a day. Most of it is pretty easy and they rarely ask me for help. All 3 kids are "passing".

I know that it is not as rigorous as normal but I am ok with it. Their lives have been upended and it is a lot for kids to handle. I am trying to take this time to teach them other things (how to clean a toilet ! ). Each night I have one kid help me with dinner so they can learn a bit of cooking. They all have a long term self directed project that benefits us all. My son is building a rock wall along the path to the lake. My girls have a vegetable garden. Amazon is open for books anytime they want extra reading material. It is not "normal" but I really value this time. I love seeing my kids a bit more free to explore. Not being on a crazy schedule has really been good for us all.

I love your long-term project!!! I actually offered that as an enrichment option for my students but none took me up on it. Sigh.

 

[nala]

Distance learning for both our five and thirteen year old. Assignments for the older son are marked as complete or incomplete. Younger one has to complete assignments each day but there is no indication how those are being marked.

I will say that since starting this I have become acutely aware of how inappropriate the curriculum for kindergarten is. Instead of mastering one skill before moving on to another it is just multiple skills thrown at a child all at once.

An example of this is watching a video and then answering questions in complete sentences with appropriate punctuation with phonetic spelling for words they don't know. Instead of getting them to master writing and then teaching them to spell words correctly AND THEN moving on to writing sentences about stories.

Hey, what do I know, I'm not a teacher but to me it doesn't make sense.

I can see how it must be super frustrating! I can only speak for my district, but it’s likely that the curriculum you are seeing is a last-minute resource that the teacher was able to scrounge up in a hurry. I know that there is no substitute for actual instruction, which is why our district is not holding the students accounting for any work beyond March 13th and labeling all other work as enrichment.

 

[tyty333]

I have a 9th grader. She does about 2 hours of work in the morning (remote login) then is done on most days. They have not told us about any
changes in grading. Probably a good thing because it would let the kids slack off (even more). I do know they are having no end of the year finals.
Some of the classes have test that have to be passed for the state. Not sure what they are doing about those. Maybe passing them based on their
grades throughout the year. The on-line/google classroom and other on-line tools they are using seems to be working fairly well.

 

[House Cat]

Does he have hardly and work assigned? As a parent, how do you feel about this?

Some days he has nothing at all. On his busiest day, he’s had 15 minutes of work for the whole day.

I feel that our kids are going through this trauma with us. It would be unfair to expect academic excellence out of them when there are days when I can’t even get the laundry done. Also, how much learning will actually be retained under these traumatic circumstances? These kids will probably have to relearn everything anyway, once the pandemic is truly over and safety is restored. Now that I’ve said all that, I think I understand why minimal work has been given to my teen.