YES! One of my biggest beefs. It is so frustrating to not know, and to not be able to see where effort should best be spent. Yes, of course all assignments should (in a perfect world) get all the effort needed to do well and get them in on time. But in our world, there comes a point where you need to prioritize. Right now, S25 has a 98 in English but an 88 in Chem. Ok, if there’s only enough time todo homework for one class, or he’s got to prioritize doing either a lab report or giving robust answers to a lit analysis assignment, he’s going to do the Chem. He has a chance to pull that up, and it’s unlikely that English will drop too low.
Fortunately for us, right after winter break we had snow - so school was cancelled for three days because of the roads and sidewalks. It seems like most teachers were asked to telework on those days as they were able - not teaching, but doing grade prep and other administrative things. So S25 got a lot of grades coming in then.
My current frustration is with his ASL class. The first quarter ended October 31st. His ASL teacher was, unbeknownst to the parents, fighting cancer (I’m not saying we should’ve known she had cancer, you’ll see where I’m going in a minute). As far as I can tell, her last day in the classroom was on or about Nov 6th, so a few days into the second quarter. There were two assignments that week, neither of which were graded. She then went out on medical leave and a substitute teacher was brought in. The parents did not find out that there was a sub (sure, my kid could’ve told me, but he didn’t) until mid-December when the original teacher died. It’s very hard to find a qualified teacher for ASL, and the school has yet to identify one. For this ENTIRE QUARTER, there has been no instruction and no grades. We were told when the teacher died that the school would notify us about next steps and how they were planning to manage this, but it’s been crickets.
The substitute is not a nice person. She yells at students, frequently. She repeatedly issues detentions - including giving my kid detention for things that are expressly noted as challenges for him in his IEP. I wasn’t bugging the school because I figured they’d tell us something post-winter break. But Monday afternoon I had had enough. S25 came home saying he and two other boys had gotten an in-school suspension for talking, quietly, in class. Other students were also talking. The teacher wasn’t attempting to teach. He asked her (and he maybe shouldn’t have done this) if she was singling their group out specifically, and she said yes, they are “always the problems” and the other kids are fine. They are, I’ll note, also the only boys in the class. Moments after this, a school employee came in to the classroom and S25 reported the exchange to her and advised that he was feeling singled out and bullied.
So I emailed the school Monday night - I copied the Assistant Principal for our grade, the AP for Languages, the head of counseling, my kid’s guidance counselor, my kids SpEd case carrier and the head of SpEd.
I asked: (1) how are you going to determine grades for the quarter - my kid happens to be the only senior in this class, and semester grades matter for him for college; (2) what’s the go-forward plan; and (3) that I wanted to know what kind of training long term substitutes receive, whether they are observed like regular teachers, whether they have access to IEPs and are aware of SpEd needs of kids in their class, and that I wanted to report inappropriate responses to my son based on issues that are clearly delineated in his IEP as part of his learning disability.
I got an email back later that night from the AP for languages saying she’d be happy to meet with me. I replied back within the hour with potential dates and times and noted that, if none of those worked for her, I’d be happy to find a time that fit her schedule. So far, crickets.
I’m cranky on so many levels.
(And never mind the fact that my kid genuinely liked the original teacher, and he’s still sad that she died. And I get that the school staff are also likely sad and that there’s a lot of emotion here. I’m trying hard to be sensitive to that while also advocating in an appropriate way.)
that at worst it is "get this up by end of year’ situation…
and get reaaaalllllly quiet…
. That woman really burned me up.
for the surprise end of term grade
and 
for the Purdue application
for those cutie-pie photos