I appreciate this sentiment but the entire system sounds like grade inflation at its best. Why can’t they just have a normal system in place, where there is a common assortment of assessments? If the kids are getting As in one and Fs in the other, in this binary system there is something clearly off. Either the material is not being properly taught of the labs are poorly designed.
For my kids, labs were the way to “survive” the class and a weekly activity. B+/A- are common grades for the strongest students but almost all score a 5.
It sounds to me like the teacher should have done a better job showing the students how to properly create a lab report before, rather than failing a bunch of kids after. Usually AP kids want to do well and will try to follow instructions.
@TonyGrace Yeah, something is wrong here, but it’s with this teacher somehow more than the general system. Last year this kid took AP Physics 1, my older kid took AP Physics C. In both there were separate gradebook entries for the lab and the class, since together they take two class periods. But in both of the physics classes, the grades were similar - like maybe a 92 and an 88 or a 97 and a 94. So at least, on their face, it looked like the kid was getting it and demonstrating understanding of the concepts through both facets of the class.
What’s confounding me here is how there is only one lab report grade. This class meets for 90 minutes every day (most classes are ever other day, but because it’s two periods, it meets every day). I’m confident that they’ve spent a significant amount of time on labwork, if for no other reason than my kid keeps wearing pants to school. (Must wear pants on lab days, and he’s a shorts all the time kid.)
And they’ve covered more than one unit. So I’m just confused.
@Blmom23 - yes, clearly the teacher should’ve demonstrated what he wanted, or modeled it somehow. I generally like this teacher, he spends a good amount of time talking the kids through challenging concepts, he’s been appropriately supportive - and realistic about pushing back and setting appropriately high expectations - on things like their science fair projects. He seems a little quirky. Students who get him for regular chemistry generally aren’t happy, but his AP Chem students walk away loving him. He’s not a new teacher, I’d guess he’s mid-50’s and this has been his career. So this whole situation just seems… odd.
It’s the Presidential Scholarship and is a total of $20,000 over four years. We didn’t see anything on their website about it. It was a surprise to us when she got the email. That would cover a good chunk of tuition, which is about $7k. Of course then you have fees, books, room and board.
FWIW after this little back in forth - in a private message board of well-to-do parents of seniros, 2 different parents asked about CSU application processes. One started off with “I know this should be easy, but kid and I are confused about.. …” They may have been overthinking their questions, but regardless this shows they were unsure.
I will leave it at that. I think it is confusing, to a great degree, for most adults and kids. You can say otherwise, totally your right and is not my experience (which is fairly broad in terms of incomes/backgrounds of kids, public/private).
I’m incensed on your behalf. If it’s any consolation, things will NOT end well for this teacher. There’s a zero percent chance guidance doesn’t elevate this to the science department supervisor and a zero percent chance parents don’t complain to the principal/department supervisor as well. How is November their very first formal lab report? Why was there no instruction on how to do a lab report before now? If the results were so catastrophic, why wasn’t the lab grade pushed to quarter 2 to give time to remediate and instead list the class grade as the lab grade? So many balls dropped…
Yeah, this is all kinds of wrong. There have already been parents complaining on the highschool Facebook page, so I’m sure the department chair, head of guidance and principal have all heard about it. What I don’t get is how this got so screwed up. A few years ago we had a math teacher who didn’t grade anything until the last week of the quarter and then several things didn’t get graded until well after the quarter ended and his grades were all late. It wasn’t good, but he was a first year teacher and clearly a little overwhelmed. This guy has taught this class for more than a decade so I’m just confounded about how he could drop so many balls.
I completely agree. Anyone who thinks the college app process is easy is looking at a very small sample. My son asked a very simple question of his CC at his small private HS. She replied with ‘ Let me take a breath before replying….’ He was left feeling silly for having asked the question. I realize it’s a stressful time for CC’s but you have to be able to ask q’s. And he is lucky to have a CC.
I brought up the CSU app originally in response to the original comment that the process can be easy. I was using that as an example of an app that could possibly be easy relative to other, more time consuming apps (he has not looked at it yet). His friend said it took him 45 minutes so I was going off that. Bottom line- the college app process sucks and while there are easier apps than others, it is more than likely not easy for most.
Happy dance in the house this morning: S25 got an email to check his application portal for Penn State, and he’s been accepted at University Park! Wasn’t expecting to hear until the end of December, so this was a pleasant surprise.
(It’s weird how this one feels particularly exciting for me. I assume it is because my husband and I went to high school in rural Pennsylvania and Penn State felt like a big reach for most kids, and I’ve definitely seen where University Park has been harder to get into lately. And it is a lot easier to imagine S25 at that campus, having spent a lot of time visiting family in PA, than at a campus in a state where I’ve never stayed longer than two days. Not that that will factor into S25’s decisions, but it’s interesting to notice it for myself.)
Holding out for the last two notices for the top two choices in January and February is going to take some patience!
Mixed day yesterday for us. My S25 is transgender and is very, very scared and angry. On the other hand, he got his first college acceptance to ASU’s film school.
He needs to look very carefully at where he goes to college b/c of the lack of expectations of federal protections, and Arizona is a mixed bag. But it was still a nice thing to have in the bag now.
Same here. My S25 is also trans, frightened, and sad, and we are reevaluating some of his applications. While all schools are in the Northeast or Mid-Atlantic, he no longer feels safe traveling far from NYC or with Western PA schools.
He had limited his searches to Virginia (where we live and relatively safe) and California. ASU was a last minute add b/c we have family in Phoenix… but they are right on that edge.
Hugs! C25 is nonbinary and is also upset and scared. I’m thinking they will probably take Oberlin off their list. They want to end up in Maine or Connecticut, possibly New Hampshire or Minnesota.
Wasn’t expecting to hear until the end of December, so this was a pleasant surprise.