Have HS teachers hit a new low?

Parent Cafe
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<p>In our area, quarter grades are, indeed, averaged into the final year or semester long grade for a class. Each quarter is worth a full 20% of the final grade. If the GC was also upset about this I am guessing that the physics teacher’s actions did have the potential to affect the actual grade.</p>

<p>But I’m not clear about what aspect of the physics teacher’s statement to the GC was untruthful. He first told your D “he couldn’t put anything other than a zero into the Excel spreadsheet for grades for the two missing labs.” Then he told the GC "he always puts zeroes into spreadsheet in anticipation of kids not doing the make-up work. One could interpret “couldn’t” to mean the same thing as “against his policy” unless the teacher clearly stated that the software would not <em>allow</em> him to omit the two labs manually. But if he was able to override the program and it did affect the quarter grade, then yes, it was completely inappropriate, most especially as relates to the observance of a religious holiday. </p>

<p>As to whether your D was given any clear deadline by which to finish up those two labs - I may be wrong, but I am reading the story to be suggesting that she was told to hand them in whenever - for one thing, the teacher didn’t say anything about the labs being past an imposed deadline to the GC. In our school district there is a clear policy on missed work needing to be made up within a certain number of days from an absence. Discretion can be given by a teacher for circumstances. But in the absence of such a policy, IMO, no downgrading was deserved. </p>

<p>In our area, the kids don’t get any quizzes or exams ever returned to them. I am sure that mistakes are made in grading that are never caught because of this. Students look tests over in class (sometimes briefly, sometimes more at length) and then it has to go back to the teacher. I am sure that there are a couple of reasons for this: teachers probably recycle the same test over and over again and they don’t have to listen to student or parental feedback on why this or that question was marked right or wrong. In addition, I can see where an argument can be made that this ensures even standards of grading between sections of a class and even from one year to the next, even as it saves teachers the time and effort that go into writing them. On the whole, though, I feel it is a disservice to students, some of whom would benefit from more time to go over answers in depth at home. And since knowledge is built upon in a cumulative way and is tested that way as well, it is minimizing the use of something that can be a valuable resource.</p>

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<p>I think my school has a really good system in place.</p>

<p>We recently switched to a program called SchoolLoop, which both students and parents can sign up for. Students can view their grades anytime, and the system sends out weekly grade reports to registered parents. Also, the parents can see their students’ agendas from classes (if teachers post them), the homework as far as a week in advance, etc.</p>

<p>Before that, parents could go to our school’s web site and look up our grades, but it had to be done by individual class. Now it’s just all at once and way easier.</p>

<p>Also, they don’t only send out quarterly progress reports as well as semester report cards, but about halfway through each quarter they send out “unsats”…some teachers send them out to kids with Ds or Fs, some send them out to all their students. </p>

<p>I think there are some amazing teachers out there, and I’ve been blessed to have amazing teachers throughout HS…but I agree that this should have been brought up way earlier if the holiday was 3 or more weeks ago. But maybe I’m viewing it differently…</p>

<p>See at my school, unless the teacher tells you otherwise, you have one day for each day you were absent to make up the assignment (ie if you were absent for 3 days, you have 3 days to make up the assignments). But now since we got SchoolLoop, and a lot of the teachers are posting the agendas online, they’re expecting us to do it anyway…which honestly I kinda like.</p>

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<p>PT3 - that reminds me… last March, my D’s show choir was taking a trip to a national competition in Nashville that coincided with 3rd quarter finals (we’re on the block system). We knew almost ten months ahead the dates the kids would need to be gone, and had gotten approval from the administration to be gone those days… with a caveat. The kids had to arrange with each teacher to take their final before they left for the trip. The school arranged for students to take their exams on a Wednesday after school, of the night they left. Finals were on Thursday and Friday, so when the students returned to school on Monday, they were there for the start of the new term.</p>

<p>Interestingly, many of the teachers preferred this solution. In years past, when the students went on these trips, they always missed two days of instruction, which with block scheduling is actually 4 days. If their class was scheduled for an exam while they were gone, they usually had to take the exam before the trip.</p>

<p>But with this way, the students weren’t missing instruction. </p>

<p>In the case of days that my kids missed when attending out-of-state funerals, the teachers were very generous with make-up time because these were obviously not absences they could have predicted before hand. But if we looked on line on Power School, the missing assignment showed a 0 until it was handed in.</p>

<p>Can someone please explain what an ‘interim’ is? We have mid-term progress reports, but those have even become a joke with Power School.</p>

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<p>interim=mid-term progress report</p>

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<p>THis doesn’t have any thing to do with AP courses but it really makes me angry and it falls into the category of wack high school teachers.
I know a young woman who is a senior in high school, she is also “disabled”, but really without a good diagnosis, she is in self contained classes every day, but she is fairly physically capable and bright , she just has very poor impulse control.</p>

<p>So- her main teacher- goes out of town for a week to see her fiance a couple weeks ago. Ok fine, not so happy that teachers don’t wait for vacations to see friends and family but they can use their vacation however they want apparently & that isn’t uncommon to do so during the school year.</p>

<p>The young woman is apparently being trained to “assist” with other students who are more severely disabled. Holding their hand when crossing streets, encoraging them during their job skill training etc.
This is fine with her parents- they think it is great.
Until…
The aide was left in charge of the class, while the teacher was out of town.
Aide decided since ( Ill call her Alice) was so helpful, she had her change diapers of several students who were limited to a wheelchair and had no mobilty.
Neither Alices parents or the parents of the other students were consulted.
Additionally, the class goes swimming every week, and they have been having Alice help other students in and out of their clothing.</p>

<p>Now this is a girl who doesn’t know boundaries ALL Ready!
She is not going to understand why if it is ok to help people with their private bits when she is asked to, that it isn’t ok the rest of the time too.
This could get her into real trouble when she transistions into a care facility.</p>

<p>Her mom only found out about this because the Aide told her about it and how helpful Alice was being.</p>

<p>I couldn’t believe it.</p>

<p>She is meeting with the teachers and has already told them that it wasn’t ok , but I also told her she needs to tell the principal ASAP, because who knows how long these sorts of things have been going on & what else has been going on she hasn’t heard about?</p>

<p>It is putting Alice at risk for being labeled a sex offender.
It is taking advantage of her agreeableness to get the aide out of unpleasant work
It is treating the disabled students like they are meat, without rights or intelligence.
I feel like telling the paper ( which I won’t of course), but I get so tired of reading how special education students are so expensive and never any other side of the story about how they are not getting their legal rights met
:(</p>

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<p>“Opie, your suggestion to keep all papers in a file until the end of the year is an excellent one”</p>

<p>It just took one scramble over a test that was taken that was “missing” on the grade book lines. We couldn’t verify the score or even if the test was taken. After discussing with teacher, discovered a printing error in the grade book so colums didn’t line up. </p>

<p>We just learned that just like doing taxes, throw nothing away till your sure you don’t need it. Besides the kids had a ball burning and b itching about classes that year while burning test papers… Lots of "remember when… " followed by alot of laughter. We found the AP chemistry papers burned with the best colors. :)</p>

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<p>Good advice, Opie, on record-keeping to CYA. We learned it can extend into college. Our D had been given an extension by a wonderful, favorite professor. She emailed in the paper from where she was travelling. When her grade came out, she shrieked with horror, upset that the extension had been so costly to her grade. She phoned him up and he had no paper and no record of ever receiving the paper (a messy-desk guy). Her saved email with the actual date and time of transmission saved her neck. He regraded it. He pointed out that without her email data, she might have backdated a brand new paper, newly written only after the low course grade was published, when the opposite was true. He’s still her favorite professor.</p>

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<p>Currently going through problems with an AP Bio teacher. Instead of teaching us any material, she just puts another teacher’s PowerPoint notes on a screen and reads directly off the screen to us. If anyone asks her a question, the usual response is “Ummm…I’m not sure about that…” and a quick change of subject. While reviewing for a test two days ago in class, she told us, and I quote, “It’s not fair that you guys want ME to come up with review questions and try to get you to learn this material. That’s not my job”. Isn’t that EXACTLY what her job is!!!</p>

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<p>It sounds like you have a lousy AP Bio teacher, but I never had a college professor give me review questions for exams. That’s the dance of APs is it taught like a high school course or a college course? Most teachers opt for something in between.</p>

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<p>“It sounds like you have a lousy AP Bio teacher” </p>

<p>Or someone who administration has thrust into the position to fill a demand. How you’ve described the situation, it sounds like a teacher covering a position. Now, who’s choice that was, I’d guess it wasn’t hers. </p>

<p>Do you know how long she has been an AP bio teacher? </p>

<p>“Isn’t that EXACTLY what her job is??!!” </p>

<p>Maybe, maybe not. She could have been an english major. Could your distain be directed at the wrong person? </p>

<p>Sometimes in school districts advanced classes are formed to satisfy parent demand without any idea of who is going to teach them. AP classes need experienced teachers and that takes a little time. </p>

<p>Another area this can happen in is special education as their is currently a shortage of qualified special ed teachers. In my spouse’s district a few years back, they gathered information on all teachers backgrounds to see who had any special ed classes. Took a semester at college 10 years ago, great we’re reassigning you to teach special ed…</p>

<p>My point is could you be disappointed in a person who is doing the best they can under the circumstances? Could they be there under unfair circumstances?</p>

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<p>My D took a quarter photography course last year; her junior year. She did some really nice creative black and white shots of various things around the house. I know, because I cracked the egg or held the cat or angled the lamp, etc for her. Trouble was, she was told to put her finished work on a table somewhere in the photo classroom. She did. Apparently someone stole it and handed it in as their own. My D got a C- for the entire course on her report card. Did a nice number on her junior year GPA. The teacher could have listened to her. He could have checked to see who had handed in those unusual shots. But he gave her an F on the final, which is where the C- comes from. That was after him making fun of her in a demeaning way for the whole course—“It’s a good thing you’re pretty…I hope you’re planning to marry a rich man” --as his little way of saying he thought she was a ditz. We didn’t even bother with it, because we had just been through a horrendous ordeal with her French teacher (related in full on this board) and all the fight was beaten out of us. I can’t wait til she’s out of this school…</p>

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<p>Another reminder to keep copies of everything, even in college. D took a grad level course from her fav UG prof, she later got a bad grade and was embarassed to follow-up assuming some how she hda blown it, and humiliated herself in front of fav prof who let her take the high level course.</p>

<p>Long story short, he never got her final paper, she emailed it to him (time stamp was there somehow); got an A in the class, got a good letter of reference from him and is now in grad school at a different Uni in fav profs specific minor detail area.</p>

<p>Fav prof is pretty famous in his field, I am sure his letter helped her get an in at the new school, it would have been a real squandered opportunity if she could not have proven she had the paper.</p>

<p>A return receipt on an email might be a nice way to not reach that stress level :)</p>

<p>I also tel Ds to email me a copy of current papers so that if their computer crashes, there is a copy saved elsewhere, cheap insurance, and I have seen several computer problems happen over the years.</p>

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<p>In regards to my AP Bio teacher, she graduated with a degree in biology from Miami University. Previously another teacher taught the course, and apparently quite well, but she asked if she could teach the course instead . </p>

<p>We got our test back today and no one got higher than a C. When we tried to ask her questions about the answers, she said she’d have to go home and llook at the chapter in the book because she didn’t really know if the answers were in there or not. When asked, she didn’t know many of the answers to the questions she expected US to know how to answer! Her statement was “I’m sorry you guys aren’t happy with your scores, but those are the answers and you should have gotten them right.”</p>

<p>All three of our school’s valedictorians are in the class and getting C+'s, and more than half of the class is considering dropping it for the next trimester. Over the course of the last few years, I believe only 3-4 students out of a total of around 60 have felt prepared enough to take the AP Bio exam in May, and usually those students were in another biology class at the same time where the teacher actually TEACHES the material.</p>

<p>Sorry, just venting :)</p>

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<p>"Sorry, just venting "</p>

<p>No that’s OK. because you are describing the situation a bit better. So it’s her first year teaching the class? She’s got a bio degree, but I wonder how many education classes she’s had to go with? </p>

<p>Maybe ask her to discuss the test with the class as a group. Try to talk with her about it first. Make that effort, if she says no, as a group request a meeting with the prinicpal to talk about the class. If everybody is struggling (or a majority) it is different than one or two kids. It is important to attempt to talk about it as a class first as that will be the first thing your principal asks if you did. </p>

<p>Your teacher should be concerned if noone scored higher than a C, that doesn’t fit the curve, even in a hard class. </p>

<p>You should ask yourselves what you see as the problems are? Make sure as you point out what she isn’t doing that you apply the same litmus to yourselves. Are you putting in the time in the books? Usually AP bio requires about 15 hours a week study time outside of class, it and AP Chem are hard APs. Are you guys putting in the work? Its’ worse in college. Our HS AP teachers had Saturday and evening extra work sessions for class too that students were expected to attend. I have this feeling the teacher is pretty young no? </p>

<p>Think diplomatically. Many here offer in your face approaches that work real well as emails under a fake name, but fail miserably in real life. Try to talk about it, if she turns the class down, she is giving permission for you to move higher up the food chain, but she must first turn you guys down or not talk about the situation. Is the other AP Bio teacher a senior teacher? Can they be approached? Just remember your goal is to do better on AP BIO, scorching the earth and grinding the teachers bones aren’t going to make your scores higher. Ask for help, not revenge.</p>

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<p>Well said – tremendous, seasoned advice for students or parents seeking to affect positive change within a school. They have to respect a group of people whose true goal is to learn the material. I think principals have not time for complaints that are all about getting a half-grade higher to make val, or commotions to embarrass a teacher (mean! young! whatever the beef is) and take pleasure if she gets demoted. If a group goes to a principal (after trying with the teacher) their words should be grounded in their authentic desire to Learn Biology. Part of that may be proving the teacher is having difficulty Teaching Biology. Students have a responsibility for their own learning in a classroom, so part of this is to document how much self-teaching is going on in every household to compensate for the teacher’s limitations. Her job isn’t to make you study, but it is to make the material sufficiently comprehensible that you can wend your way through it with some effort. I always think of a good teacher as a Zen Master, raking the stones in front of the student’s path so they can travel it well. Zen Masters usually don’t stand behind students and kick them, nor should they be raking the stones around stupidly into impossible little mounds that make it harder for a student to learn.</p>

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<p>

[quote]
threw a chair in class[/qoute]</p>

<p>This person imo should be reported up the line at once if there are a number of people who will vouch that the teacher in fact threw a chair.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much for all your suggestions, Opie. I think on Monday my classmates and I will try to (calmly and rationally) have a talk with her about our concerns. </p>

<p>I believe she’s taught the class for 3 or 4 years now. The other bio teacher, who teaches biotechnology now, is really great and we all often hop over to his classroom after school/during class with questions and he has offered to help us in any way, but our teacher is quite defensive about us needing help because she knows it’s her fault. Yes, she is young, and popular with a lot of the school because they think she’s fun and funny…until you try to take a serious class with her.</p>

<p>We only received our books this Monday, even though we’d already had 2 tests, so now I’m hoping that I’ll be able to study better. Since Monday, I read the chapter over again every night and took notes, highlighted notes, did the review activities/quizzes that went with the book online, and consulted other bio teacher’s websites. Anybody have any great AP Bio resources? :)</p>

<p>Thanks so much to everyone! I feel much more in control of this situation now. One of the assistant principals and I are pretty close and I know he would listen to what I have to say. Thanks again!</p>

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<p>kelspianogirl,
If it’s any consolation, AP Bio was the hardest AP class my kids took, as far as achieving a high grade. Whereas AP Physics and Chemistry were “you get it, you understand it, you can do the problems”, AP Bio was just a ton of information to retain and use. My son would study the book and notes for hours, but there was no telling what was going to be asked on the test. Kids would ask, “what do we need to know for the exam?” and the teacher would say, “everything in the book”. And he was right! </p>

<p>S used the Cambell Reese textbook, and we ended up buying the book so he could keep it at home (it really is an excellent book and it comes with online resources too). The same book was used for Bio at our state university, because my older son ended up buying the next edition a couple years later. </p>

<p>What you are doing in taking AP Bio is covering two full semesters of college biology, plus two semesters of biology labs! That’s a lot to cover in high school. Think about it- the equivalent number of hours you’d spend in college per week to cover the same information would be at least 6… 3 hours of classroom instruction (and maybe an additional hour for TA-led discussion) and at least 3 hours in the lab. I’ll bet your class does not get 6 to 7 hours a week in the classroom/lab for AP Bio, so you’re actually trying to do it in less time than the typical college student.</p>

<p>Our bio teacher is a great teacher, but he still could not make the class easy, or even moderately difficult. As it turned out, though, S scored a 5. There is just a lot of memorization to push into your brain. In that respect, your teacher is correct, you just have to take the material, memorize that which is memorizable, understand the rest, and be able to regurgitate it back or use the information for critical thinking problems. Good luck!</p>

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<p>So if an AP class should be worth college credit (yes I know you have to take a test) then shouldn’t it be taught like a college class???</p>

<p>I am not going to say anything about high school teachers because both my parents teach at our high school and I have several teachers who I would consider friends at the high school.</p>

<p>What I will say though is you guys all sound like the normal population-- “If it isn’t given to me, then it’s not my fault. It’s the [insert authoritive figure] fault that I’m not perfect.”</p>

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<p>^^^ ?
What in my post indicates this?</p>