<p>My next child is due to start HS next year, and was going to study the same foreign language. It is likely she will also have this teacher, so I’m a little afraid of making waves for her sake. He is kind of a loose cannon, in my opinion.</p>
<p>“Yes, I have a print-out of her scores on all the assignments. He does not dispute the objective, numerical grade. He admits she earned one grade “on paper” but he gave her a lower one. Apparently he feels that is his right. Can a principal override a grade given by a teacher?”</p>
<p>Yes. I was able to get that done for S once when a teacher gave him a low grade that I knew wasn’t what S earned. The teacher said she had no grading rubric! A group of parents (whose kids had similar problems) and I complained to the principal, who did change the grades.</p>
<p>My worry there would be that, having “gotten away with it” with your older child, he’ll feel pretty comfortable that he can play games with your younger child’s grades as well…</p>
<p>That’s true, eg1. I hadn’t viewed it from that angle. </p>
<p>That’s good to know, Northstarmom. The more I think about it, the more I hope my daughter will decide to approach the principal with her print-out in hand to see what he can do. I am curious to hear what the principal will have to say, if he will defend this haphazard grading practice. I really wish I knew if my daughter was the only one who got a grade different from what was earned. My daughter doesn’t want to call anyone from her class and ask them, which I understand.</p>
<p>J: </p>
<pre><code>Let the counselor and the principal know that this happened and ask if they can do anything to have it rectified. Then just let it lie. I would, if I were you, do everything humanly possible to insure that no younger children end up in this guy’s classroom.
</code></pre>
<p>I absolutely cannot understand the motives of this teacher. Why would he want to punish a student who cared about getting good grades? You would think that he would be thrilled to have a motivated student such as your daughter.</p>
<p>Would this teacher prefer students who act apathetic and lazy? He is definitely sending out the wrong message to his students, and for that alone the Principal should be notified.</p>
<p>I think that if you do approach the administration, you need to explain the situation with your younger daughter coming along and ask that if they can/will change the grade, that they do so without consulting or notifying the teacher. Just fix the darn transcript.</p>
<p>It sounds like the school doesn’t want to ruffle this teacher’s feathers as they don’t yank his leash on all the other stuff, so they should be amenable to fixing the grade behind his back.</p>
<p><snark on=“”>Also gives you the last laugh… <snark off=“”></snark></snark></p>
<p>This sounds so much like my kid’s AP language teacher that I wonder if it could actually be the same guy. And if it is, the principal already knows all about it, because we very recently sat in his office sharing some of the bizarre, truly objectionable, not-language-related lessons he was trying to impart to our kid. I say, go to the principal with the emails. Teachers can’t just assign grades at random; they do have rubrics to offer some hope of standardization and basic fairness. Now if the guy had given your D a truly low grade in some utterly subjective thing like “participation,” there isn’t much you could do about it. But admitting in writing that he lowered her grade to teach her a lesson, despite the actual grade she earned? Maybe if there are enough parent complaints, documented, with written substantiation of unprofessional behavior, the school will finally do something about your guy, our guy, and all the guys who take advantage of their positions of authority.</p>
<p>
I was thinking something similar!</p>
<p>
And for this former teacher of horsegirl’s, I think all teachers should get the same pay!</p>
<p>I’m reluctant to share too much of the story for fear I will no longer be on college “confidential”! One other nugget, though: In the email, he told my daughter he hoped she would learn through this experience that grades do not reflect ability. He feels that is a very important lesson for her, specifically, to learn. If she got a grade lower than she knows she earned, it was his hope that she would better grasp this fact. Ironically, she does know that grades do not reflect ability! She simply wants hers to reflect her performance. </p>
<p>CCSurfer: I hope we are talking about the same person! It would be awful to think there is more than one. He certainly sounds similar, especially the non-language-related lessons you describe. </p>
<p>My younger daughter is going to switch languages to be sure not to get this teacher. It’s hard to know for certain, but I think the teacher is mentally or emotionally off-balance.</p>
<p>If and when you communicate with the principal, please do not leave out the head of the language department. That’s the proper chain of command, and you don’t want to bend his/her nose out of shape given your other child’s entry into the high school.</p>
<p>Excellent point, Chedva. If my daughter decides she wants to voice her concerns, I would have encouraged her to speak to the department chair first. However, the department chair is out of school for the summer but the principal is still there.</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>I would also be very upset. My son kept up his work ethic to the bitter end of senior year with great effort. It was so hard to care about grades at that point, but he wanted a good record and he forced himself to stay on track. If he had been “rewarded” with a lower grade, I’d have been ballistic! I would not let this drop, unless your daughter wants to drop it.</p>
<p>bethievt: That’s part of it, too, and probably what my daughter hurts over the most. She kept up the effort, and didn’t ever slack off. She was the only one in class on senior ditch-day, except for an athlete who had to come to school to compete in the meet after school that day! All her efforts to prove her determination seemed to have the opposite effect on him – he viewed them as further proof that she needed to learn his “you care too much” lesson. </p>
<p>I’ll respect and support my daughter’s decision what to do next, if anything. Even if she decides not to pursue it, I may contact the principal and/or department chair at some point to share my concerns. </p>
<p>I am grateful to the CC parents who have shared their experiences, advice and support. It helps so much!</p>
<p>I’m just curious? Why didn’t she go to senior ditch-day? l I don’t agree with what happened with that particular teacher - don’t get me wrong, but maybe there really was a lesson buried in this wierd situation.</p>
<p>jnsq: Every class at my Ss HS is required to have a grading standard, and it is spelled out on day 1 of class and to parents at open house. There is NO way a teacher could get away with this at our HS, and if someone had tried it with my S, we would have been contacting the teacher, department head, principal, counselor and others have suggested here. My S was also one of the 2 or 3 kids who showed up on senior ditch day, and he worked hard for his grades. No one should be allowed to take away from him or your D something that they earned.</p>
<p>I think that teacher’s behavior is extremely unprofessional, and if he refuses to do the right thing, it should be brought to the attention of his higher-ups before it gets worse.</p>
<p>momof3: As I said, my S didn’t do ditch day either, because he didn’t want to. He isn’t your average kid, I’ll grant you, but that is no reason to change an earned A to a B on the whim of a teacher. No one from his HS has ever gone to an ivy, and only a few to top schools. My S will be going to Stanford, so I guess his work ethic and way of doing things worked for him.</p>
<p>By the way, he ended up getting an Oberweis Dairy gift card for being one of the 3 kids in his language class that day, and he has consumed all the delicious milk that we got with that card. So there can be benefits from ditching ditch day.</p>
<p>She didn’t skip school on senior ditch day for two reasons: She had to make up a quiz in another class, and she wanted to demonstrate to this teacher, in particular, her academic integrity. Also, the foreign language teacher in question had held my daughter to a higher standard, apparent to her classmates as well, and my daughter wanted to show him that she could meet that standard by going the extra mile. She was afraid if she missed his class, he would give HER a harder time, as he had done before when she did not do as well as he expected, though every bit as well as her classmates. As you can tell, he sent her VERY mixed messages! To me, it felt like no matter what she did, he was not pleased. </p>
<p>I am trying very hard to stay constructive when I say I think he might be a bit off, mentally. I brought up some of these concerns to the guidance counselor early on in the year and was told I was the only one he knew of who felt as I did. My parent/teacher conference was truly unlike any other. Again, the GC reassured me that perhaps the teacher was not comfortable with parents, hence the strange conference.</p>
<p>You may not think it matters - after all who cares about the senior year HS grades? But, in my case, now nearly 30 years ago, I decided to transfer after my freshman year as the dream school did not work out. Guess what - every school I applied to wanted my HS grades as I had only one year of college behind me. </p>
<p>These days, I would think that would be even more true given the competitive nature of college admissions. </p>
<p>I had to go argue for two grades - both in Math - for DS.</p>
<p>One where the teacher flat made a mistake moving from the online grading system to the final grade (since when as a 98% in math equaled a B-). For that one I had to go to the principal as she was on summer vacation and not responding to email or voicemail.</p>
<p>The other was where the teacher changed the weighting on the grading system after the final, making the final worth 25% instead of 10% as indicated both on the syllabus and in the online system. Since DS had an A locked up if the final was worth 10% - and he had a major final in Chemistry that same day where his grade was borderline, he did not bother studying or really working that hard on the final. After the expected result on the test (a D), and with the shift in the weights, he dropped to a B. Teacher agreed that it was punishing him unfairly and went back and regraded the class - giving the students the higher of the grades under both systems.</p>
<p>My D had a foreign language teacher that was using a system of “weighted” scores for different assignments. For example, a test would be a 5, but HW is only a 3. When I couldn’t understand how he comes up with the cumulative grade, I contacted the teacher and asked for explanation.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with asking to review a grading policy with a parent. That “B” can come back to haunt your kid…</p>
<p>Bob.</p>