We’re having a problem also, and I wonder if anyone has advice.
I mentioned before about my D’s AP Physics C teacher (brand new to her school and it seems like he has never taught before). She is getting more and more worried about her grade in this class. She’s not worried about getting a B… she’s worried because she has no sense whether she’s getting a B, C, D, or failing, because they are getting zero feedback.
Students have trouble even understanding the teacher, and most are struggling with homework and quizzes. But D says that some people in class have already taken physics C online or already know the material for some other reason, and she thinks this is giving the teacher the sense that his teaching is OK, because not everyone is flailing helplessly.
The teacher has graded only one thing this semester, and that was a quiz they took on Sept 4th. The grading on this quiz was confusing; most students did poorly, but he curved or adjusted the scores so that they didn’t all fail (my D received a B-). Since then, they have had several more quizzes / tests, and the students don’t know how they are doing or how the tests are being graded. Students keep asking him in class to grade material and give them feedback, and it sounds like he is just waving away their concerns.
Most of the students in this class are high achievers who have had maybe one or two Bs in their lives, are earnestly trying to succeed in this class, and would be doing fine with a decent teacher. And now they’re worried about the possibility of getting a D or worse and having college acceptances rescinded.
Those things are appropriate for me to do as a parent? I have always been super hands off as a parent and left it up to my kids to do the interactions with teachers and staff at school (especially in HS), I worry that intervening as a parent would have some backlash?
I’d look over her college list and see which ones do EA and RD with decisions that come out before end of the semester grades would be posted. Those I would try not to worry about.
Would ‘failing’ this class keep her from graduating? If yes, then it’s worth a meeting with the VP who oversees your student to say - this is messed up.
If not, and she does get a “D”, I think it’s probably advisable to be proactive and put together a single page letter which says… “I” received a “D” in this class - Physics C. My other grades were all A’s in other AP classes. To put this in context, the instructor was a new teacher, new to the school, and new to teaching this course. I had multiple meetings with (him) to review my difficulties in his class and with his manner of teaching to try to address the issue. I was unable to do so - and received a “D” despite my best efforts both in teh classroom and with the instructor. I ask that you look at this one class in the context of all of my other grades.
Unless it’s a HIGHLY SELECTIVE school, I doubt it will cause them much concern - if it is a highly selective school, addressing it may help put the school at ease. I really doubt they would pull an admissions offer over a “D” in one AP class if the rest of their record is on par with prior performance / exemplary.
She has a few highly selective schools on her list currently that will either use first semester grades as part of their RD decision, or would use them if she is deferred to RD.
If the teacher was actually grading work, we would at least have a realistic idea of whether she should just give up on those schools at this point. It would be a shame because otherwise she would have a strong application, but better to be realistic.
Beyond that, the concern is being rescinded from EA schools (or the UCs) for a D or F. It’s hard to believe that we are at this point with a student with her academic record (and who tells me Calc BC is “easy and fun”) but that’s where we are right now.
I agree with this approach. Whenever we attend the school open houses, the teachers ALWAYS give us their email address so we can ask questions, etc. We’ve never done it, but this absolutely seems like the time to do so.
Meant to add that I wish I’d done this during the last trimester last school year for D26’s Spanish class. For trimester 1 & 2, she had A’s. During trimester 3, she received NO feedback on any assignments…like there wasn’t even a progress report produced by the teacher (brand new to teaching last year; my kid learned nothing new in Spanish last year). I kept waiting thinking, “oh maybe it’ll come this week.” I should have been more assertive about it. Grades for Trimester 3 came out and whammo…she got a C for Trimester 3. Ended up with a B in the class overall for the year, so that’s ok. But I’m still irritated about it.
This year’s spanish teacher is different than last year’s…thankfully, this year’s teacher is much better.
So don’t wait. Communicate your concerns to the teacher and the school administration. Don’t wait for your kid to take action because it sounds like they’ve already been trying to do that and it’s not making any headway.
BUT when communicating your concerns to the teacher, you could do it in such a way that gives the teacher an ‘out’ and a way to save face just in case. Like say something about how this is what you’re observing at home but it’s possible that maybe your child is leaving some of the details out, so that’s why you’re contacting Mr/Ms Physics Teacher to confirm: (a) what grade your student currently has in the class; (b) what the scores are that Child has earned on all tests, quizzes, and assignments so far from start of school year; and (c) does Mr/Ms Physics Teacher recommend any additional resources you could use at home to beef up their understanding of concepts being taught in case since you’re concerned that they’re struggling with mastering the material.
I did this when D24 was in 10th grade and had Honors Chemistry. That teacher was a bit of a dud and left after that school year. I reached out to the teacher via email and got a really snarky & passive-aggressive reply back, which reinforced what my gut was telling me at the time (which was “my kid is basically going to have to teach herself this subject”).
You are right. It gets sent to the college if you apply to the college. And yes, the school can probably tell that it’s the wrong LOR. But I think they will receive the real LOR by email, not through the system. So, it’s another step for the college. I think.
Thanks for all this! I will talk to D about it when she comes home and we can think about how to approach the teacher. (Because I would not approach a teacher without her full agreement.)
She is trying to teach herself the material with videos and other content that she is searching for outside of class. But this doesn’t seem to be enough. She also asked her brother to help. He loved physics C (and had As in class and easy 5s on both exams) and is currently an engineering student who takes physics classes for fun. He looked at her homework for this class, and his comment was that the homework is useless, confusing, doesn’t make sense, isn’t aligned with the AP material, and he wasn’t sure how to solve some of the problems. So he is not sure that even a strong understanding of the AP material would help her to do well on the homework and quizzes!
I thought I read that it triggers an automatic review for the possibility of rescinding admissions, not that it was an automatic rescinding of admissions - and that the student was expected to respond to the schools admissions office asap if they were in danger of /had received a D. (Specifically I though I saw this for Berkley) We aren’t looking at UCs so I’m not in depth on them.
My daughter had this same experience as a senior but with AP chem. She talked to the teach first on her own about the lack of posting grades and wanting to better understand how she was doing. Other than reassurance that she was doing “fine”, nothing was posted. Then a group of students talked to teacher together. Then the group went to talk to the principal. Then the parents starting getting involved when things still didn’t change until they put an “assistant teacher” with her.
I wish I could say it got better but the whole year was a cluster. The kids banded together to study, contacted older siblings who had previous taken the class for their notes, and found outside resources. They basically taught themselves that year. They did fine grade wise but the AP test was rough. I think all of them retook chem in college as they felt so ill prepared.
My daughter is applying for engineering majors, so her Physics C grades are a big deal. She was so excited to take this class.
However, she does not need it for A-G minimums… even without this class she would have 5 years of lab-based Area D (science).
That sounds awful! And I believe I remember that your daughter majored in ChemE, so it must have been particularly disappointing! So sorry to hear about that experience.
It is looked at a case by case basis. They do look at the overall picture, see how the student has been doing in other classes, if its a one off thing or a trend.
Okay, this is concerning – what a mess. I am sorry your kid is going through this!
Talk to her and ask if she is okay contacting the grade chair – or whoever the next level of supervision is – on her own. If so, encourage her to send an email explaining what’s been happening, and then ask for an in-person meeting to talk about it further.
And then, it’s perfectly fine for you to attend that meeting with her, if she agrees. I know our kids should be primarily advocating for themselves at this point, but they’re still in high school, and it’s really okay to support her. (You won’t be calling her professors next year, lol.)
ONE grade in the grade book by mid-October is kind of ridiculous, especially when they’ve had other assessments, but they just haven’t been graded. Take copies of the homework with you when you meet with the grade chair (or department chair, or whoever), and show how it doesn’t align with the AP curriculum.
It’s not just that you’re concerned about the grade – which is a valid concern, especially as she’s applying to selective schools – but also that the teacher is not teaching the material properly, so she isn’t learning it.
I would make some waves now before it gets even worse.
We had a bit of this going on in D26’s AP Physics 1 class last year, as I think I’ve mentioned previously – I wrote one email to the grade chair expressing my concern. Clearly other parents did, too, because that teacher mysteriously left the school at Thanksgiving.
