I am back in school after graduating with a BA from a CSU. I am taking classes at a local JC to fulfill prerequisites for RN programs. I am doing well, but there seems to be trouble brewing with one instructor.
Over the years I’ve had instructors of varying quality. I have had some great instructors and not so great ones. I really didn’t care before, but now I am trying to excel because I’m older and more driven. I have a psych instructor who is not grading assignments (no grades as of week 9), giving unclear instructions with unclear expectations. On top of this there are past online allegations of arbitrary grading. I have also found court documents in which a dean of a previous school alleged he had never received so many complaints about an instructor. This psych class is online and the instructor is untimely and incomplete with responses to questions.
I plan on riding the semester out to see how it goes. I really don’t want to deal with this as I do not want to waste my time and energy fighting with a crazy person. But in the mean time I am getting FOIA contact information from the former college from which the instructor was fired (info obtained from court documents). If there turns out to be arbitrary grading and continued poor performance from the instructor I would like to have a pattern established in case I cannot work things out with the instructor. I also plan on filing a FOIA request at my school if necessary to obtain the instructors rubric(which I doubt exist), other students assignments for comparison and any student complaints from my school.
I really have no problem not getting an A if I earn a lesser grade (I have earned plenty of lesser grades, I know how to…), but I would consider contesting an unfair grade by professional means. Regardless I feel somewhat let down by the education system because they rehired a person with a history of poor performance with seemingly no oversight from a co-teacher. I will likely file a complaint with the school only once the semester is over since there have been (undocumented) allegations of retaliation.
Advice from students and staff who have dealt with similar issues in the California JC system would be appreciated. All others please refrain from responding.