<p>This week, I’ve had three parent conferences where parents have expressed that they think I’m a horrible human being, and bent on ruining the lives of their kids. I’ve been told that I’m mean, inconsistent, unethical, and destroy the confidence of children. </p>
<p>Basically, I’ve decided, based on this feedback, to break my contract, and return to work that actually pays. I have a job offer (after looking for about an hour) for a position at three times my current salary.</p>
<p>My heart is broken, honestly. These are AP students and parents, and they have Bs. They want to go to schools in the top 20 of US News, but they can’t tolerate being graded based on their work product alone.</p>
<p>I have seen it both ways. I have seen parents complain when their kids were held to high standards, and I thought the teacher was tough but fair (and still less tough than a prof would be at a top college). I have also seen teachers who were so sure that they were great teachers that they couldn’t see that their teaching wasn’t working for a given kid, and they couldn’t adjust their teaching style to help those students learn the material. </p>
<p>In any case, teachers need tough skin. If you don’t have it, you probably should change professions. HOWEVER, breaking your contract IS unethical. Stick out your contract to the end of the year, then make a change.</p>
<p>Every essay in my class can be rewritten for a minimum of a one grade bump. It can be rewritten as many times as the student chooses. (They do have to conference with me first, on their own time,) I do not accept late work, unless prior arrangements are made. These are clear from the start. You get the grade you choose to earn.</p>
<p>I respond to student emails within an hour up until 10 o’clock (11:30 on the night before an essay is due.) </p>
<p>The problem with staying (one I probably should have anticipated, but didn’t) is that my daughters attend this school. One is in my class. These kids torment her throughout the day, saying awful things about me, and we are both ready to break.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’m God’s gift to teaching, but I did double the AP pass rate for this class in one year.</p>
<p>Are your grading standards significantly different than the standards used by others who teach those courses at your high school? </p>
<p>Do you share rubrics with your students at the start of a unit so that they know how you are going to grade the work for that unit? Have you considered sharing sample work with annotations on how it would be graded, and why?</p>
<p>Some parents are going to be difficult in almost any school situation. If teaching is your passion, I wouldn’t let three parents drive you away. I would consider if sharing more about your expectations and grading would be helpful. Is this the first AP class most students have taken? There may be a major disconnect in what they expect to do vs. what you need them to do for a college-level class. I can tell kids what I’m looking to see, but showing them and stepping through expectations more clearly has been more effective for me. </p>
<p>ETA: You were posting as I was writing. Given what you said, I don’t know that I’d continue.</p>
<p>Unless you are not complying with a 504 plan or IEP, no student should have special treatment.</p>
<p>On the surface, if the parents and students think that one B in an AP class will keep them out of <em>ANY</em>college, they are not very bright.</p>
<p>I always keep meticulous spreadsheets of grades in case students - and rarely even parents (I teach college) - complain about grades. I also keep everything online so nothing will be missed in class. I can always prove it is not my fault if a student has a grade issue.</p>
<p>To be honest, my son had one AP teacher who both refused to comply with his 504 plan, and also kept putting him down (lying when talking to his GC about grades posted, saying even if she complied with his 504 plan he would do just as poorly).</p>
<p>I did not confront her, but my son had to retake the class and went from a D to a B.</p>
<p>Anyway, I wish she would get out of teaching but I certainly never told her to her face.</p>
<p>If the new job is flexible enough for you, take it. I teach college partially because I am freer to take care of my kids after school. I make a lot less than public K-12 teachers, but there is more freedom.</p>
<p>There are parents like there everywhere, and they have nothing to do with your abilities as a teacher. They just can’t believe that their little angels could possibly be anything less than perfect. What about switching to a different school, with less obnoxious parents and without your kids at the school? </p>
<p>Interestingly enough, this week’s issue arose over a lesson that observed by my principal. Students were asked to annotate and TPCASST (fill out a specific worksheet) a poem in preparation for a discussion. </p>
<p>My principal writes down the entire text of the class.</p>
<p>He writes that students were instructed to get out both sheets of paper and review then with their partners (the partners had different poems.) He writes that I then checked for individual accountability by picking up and reading each form. I out in a homework grade for this assignment. 5 points if both (poem annotated, sheet completed even poorly) were done, three points if one was done, 0 points if neither was done.</p>
<p>That, according to the parents, was unethical. I’m at a loss.</p>
<p>I’d suggest discussing this with colleagues and your administrator to get their feedback. Parents may be attempting to bully you into giving their child slack. If your practices fit in with the demographics and philosophy of your school, then the parents are out of line. As long as you have the support of your administrator, carry on.</p>
<p>Agree. From what I’ve seen, a lot of parents of middle school age kids at that point believe their child is super kid and can achieve anything. No matter how hard it might be for other children, it will be smooth sailing for theirs, no bumps in the road. They have not seen the percentages of how many kids actually get the 5s, 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s on the AP exams. Their tune often changes over the course of the next few years…</p>
<p>Three negative feedbacks precipitated by one assignment may indicate to were not clear to the students, no matter how clear you think you were yourself. If you combine that by resisting criticism and digging in your heels, then yes the result for the student can seem arbitrary and unfair. </p>
<p>In one parent meeting, after reviewing the child’s work (which I grade blind - I don’t know who the student is until after I’ve graded it), and after reviewing the rubric, I told the parents that the child’s could still redo the month-old assignment for three more days (that was up on Friday) for additional points. I further told them that they were free to have any member of my department regrade it, or take issue with any part of the match to the rubric. They told me, “He shouldn’t have to do that. We don’t care what he gets or of this class or if he passes the test, but he can’t get a B. It will kill him.” ??</p>
<p>Competitive parents will sometimes bully a teacher for better grades if they can. </p>
<p>However, a “B” for the first quarter of an AP class has never, in the history of the world as I know it, ever kept a student from admission to a top college.</p>
<p>Do you have a clear, simple, written, easily accessable grading policy? Do you require both parents and students to return a signed agreement at they have read and agree with your grading policy? Does your school have an online grade book, where kids and parents can check grades every day? </p>
<p>These days, there is absolutely no reason for any high schooler (at least in my kid’s high school) to be suprised by a report card grade. Grades can be viewed online anytime, and teachers are generally willing to work with kids outside of class. You sound like you are giving your students many opportunities to bring their grades up.</p>
<p>Stay strong, don’t quit in the middle of the school year. That means a long term sub will have to take over your classes, possibly for the rest of the year. My daughter’s chem teacher was out for a big chunk of the year, and the long term sub was a math major with no experience in chemistry. Now THAT was a tough year for the students. </p>
<p>But keep looking for a different job that you can start when the school year ends. Just knowing you can leave if you want to might make ther rest of the year bearable.</p>
<p>I’m going to say that I HATE the idea of student’s being required to share their poetry, creative writing, or any journaling with another student. I get that the teacher has to read it for grading, but this is often quite personal writing, and I understand perfectly why a student wouldn’t like that. Not sure I would use the word “unethical” (and not sure if that is what they meant by it), but I think it is insensitive at best.</p>
<p>FWIW, I hate TPCASST. But it helped my son do well on the AP English Literature exam.</p>
<p>It appalls me that parents would focus more on the grade, not the learning. When my son got a D in an AP class, we talked about whether he would retake it, and he said he truly felt that he was confused about the material. So we agreed to pay for the summer class. He got a better grade but more importantly he understood the material. And now has a much better place to start when he takes the college course.</p>
<p>I am big on ethics, by the way, and I see absolutely nothing even remotely wrong with the assignment.</p>
<p>Regarding rubrics and examples… some teachers (no idea if the OP is one of them) are very resistant to them for some reason. D2 had a prof in a required lab her freshman year of college who didn’t believe in them. D struggled tremendously with that class – met with the professor multiple times and put in a ton of hours on her lab notebook, but barely passed the class. She came from a liberal arts type high school where they had not really been taught how to write up a lab, and she just didn’t understand what the prof was looking for. Second semester lab in a different department, they gave a rubric and example with the first assignment. She had the lab named “best in class” on the first assignment, and has gotten very high grades on all labs since then. She is back with that 1st semester prof in another lab this semester who marveled how much D2 had “grown up” and how she had been “mad” at D2 during that first semester for not doing a better job on her labs. D blithely told her about the rubric and example provided to her 2nd semester, and how much it helped her to understand the expectations. Not sure if this teacher learned anything herself from this situation, but she should have… </p>
<p>Out of curiosity, what is the SES of the parents? Many teachers, before my kids moved to a private school, were bullied by Type-A parents. These were the types of parents who made me, more than once, say to myself as they cut in line during pickup time, “I don’t care if you’re the CEO at work, here you’re just another parent picking up their kid.” </p>
<p>I only have this second-hand, but apparently some parents got tests rescheduled because their snowflake wouldn’t be prepared in time. Some teachers and principals stood up to the pressure; some did not. </p>
<p>If your principal thinks you did everything upfront and clearly, then the parents are out of line. However, you still have to decide if this is the type of environment you want to teach in. Allegedly, in the school district where my kids went to school, we have a reputation. Teachers are hired not only because of their teaching backgrounds but because they can deal with “those [Name of Town] parents.” A good friend of mine wasn’t hired because they didn’t think she could deal with “those [Name of Town] parents.” Which she thought was amusing since she was one of “those [Name of Town] parents”!!</p>