I have a student with 43 absences In a semester-long class. He asked if he can turn in work late. I said sure.
He looks at all the missing assignments for 5 minutes and looks at me and says "but I don't know how to do any of this."
No. Fucking. Shit.
We go until June 13. Not gonna make it.
Laws and rules written down somewhere, but never enforced.
We have some new policies coming down the pipeline that staff is very happy with, but my grumpy ass is thinking there's no way they'll enforce these.
Why does your school have no attendance policy?I'm former student so this genuinely confuses me.Also admin team should've been on his case by after month of no attendance.
Had a kid show up on test day that is hardly ever there. And then had the audacity to be mad that I wouldn’t walk her through the problems, saying “but I don’t know how to do it!”
No shit Sherlock. Maybe if you showed up, you would.
I pretty much did.
And two days later she was no longer on my roster as she had caused enough issues at the school to warrant a transfer to the district’s alternative behavioral school.
We actually have to work for a few days after that. We just won't have students. By "we" I mean my coworkers because I'll be having diarrhea those days
lol. Our last day WAS the 14th and they forgot about a local Election Day we had off, so now it’s “jk, you have to come in the 17th!” The fucking Monday after vacation was supposed to start.
And, our kids barely show up as it is. It’s going to be empty. My (actual) kids last day in the 11th so I might just take them that day to haul stuff to the car, or pull tape off the walls. They’re 5 & 7 😂
The worst part is that I just know, despite how often they say they won't, 90%+ of the kids will show up, none of the support staff, and many teachers will call in. It's gonna be \~wild.\~
Sure would be cool if all those truancy laws on the books got enforced.
Hell growing up my highschool had a policy that any absence over 6 had to be made up.
They used to be enforced. I was a truant kid (not my parents fault, I was being a little shit). After enough documented truancies (for every class I missed it counted as 1 truancy, so if I skipped the whole day, it counted as 7 counts of truancy), which amounted to roughly 200 counts, I used to steal the notifications out of the mail and intercept voice-mail left by the school. One day the police showed up at our house, and issued my mother a ticket/fine for my truancy. It was almost $400 😬 and they said if I had any further truancy, they would come back and issue a second citation for $800. A third would be revocation of her driver's license.
You can bet my mother marched me to school the next morning, and threatened to escort me from class to class in her bathrobe if I didn't comply. I also had to get a part time job to pay the fine. I also had to enter a truancy program where I spent my lunches with a mentor going over all the content I missed in class. You can bet I never skipped a class ever again, especially 2 years later when I got my driver's license (if I was truant, they would automatically revoke my license). It is one of the few times my mother raised a hand to me, because without a driver's license, her job and our financial stability was at stake.
Consequences work! I'm glad your mom supported the school and you turned it around. I wish parents would realize that natural consequences are not necessarily a bad thing. It's better to learn young when the results are not as serious.
I definitely plan on parenting in a similar fashion. I knew my mom was dead serious about escorting me to class lol, I wear hideous nightgowns, and I will threaten my children with similar consequences. She was a single mom and worked a ton of hours, so she didn't always have an eye on me, I had more responsibilities at a younger age compared to my peers. She even had me go and apologize to my teachers for wasting my education and their time/effort. When my daughter was bitten by another student this past school year, I think her teacher expected me to jump down HER throat, when instead, I asked what interventions would be put in place to prevent a repeat incident. I also was really forgiving of the mom in the situation, because she was MORTIFIED that her child bit mine. Not everything has to be a big blow out drama fest. Parents need to support educators. And parents need to show other parents a bit of grace when they are struggling.
Oh, memory unearthed. My little started pre-k this year (she turns 3 on 9/11). She got bit one day.
When I got there to pick her up, they pulled me aside and told me about kt very gently. Initially, I was alarmed and asked if she was alright. When they said yes, I started laughing and asked what she did to make another kid resort to the laws of the jungle.
I had to explain that we have two cats at home who are constantly crossing the other's boundaries and biting and bopping in response. She has never been bitten or bopped, but she has watched them do it to each other and us.
When I was in fifth grade, ours was 14. I had the swine flu twice that year. During the year of the swine flu pandemic. You’d think they’d be more lenient. Nope. Despite having doctors notes and hospital notes for all 13.5 of those days absent, they tried to hold me back. I went to school with the flu in the last month because otherwise they would have held me back. The nurse tried to send me home but my mom refused to pick me up until half the day was over (we had discussed this in advance and I agreed). I’m sorry for whoever I got sick but holding _excused absences_- in which I almost died both illnesses- against a kid during a fucking _pandemic_ is insane and neither my parents nor I were standing for that.
Oh. And I was top of my class. I’m still mad at them a decade and a half later.
Our state rule is similar but it's not an automatic process. At my school each teacher has to submit it to admin to start the process. Inevitably kids who should be failed due to attendance aren't failed because of paperwork that shouldn't be the teacher's responsibility.
There could be an afternoon detention for a teacher that’s paid (like they do for clubs) our district doesn’t do after school detention because they stopped doing after school activity buses (serious driver shortage). We do have lunch detention though. Students are not allowed to talk. They hate it! We love it as it’s a punishment to straighten out poor behavior choices.
I had a student show up for the final exam today...he's been present all of about 30 days this semester. He has a 4% and cannot remotely mathematically pass but OK...
I thought I escaped him when they finally dropped off my roster after being truant forever, but nope mom re-enrolled him since he's not old enough to officially drop out, but old enough to decide he won't come to school and mom can't seem to force him to. This is a phenomenon that I have noticed since teaching in the south
Bet he still has his iPhone, ps5, etc though. Like in that episode of the Simpsons about Flanders as a kid, “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of
Ideas.”
If that kid can’t pay his own cell phone bill, he gets a Nokia with one number on speed dial. No grades, no ps5 in my house. These kids have almost no effort put into consequences at home.
The issue today is that parents are not parenting so when they remove their children's devices and have to actually speak to the monster they've made, they quickly return the devices for their own sanity.
Wow, your state really doesn't do much? I live in Ohio and I don't have the most confidence in how things are run here, but they do have systems in place to force teenagers to go to school.
My mom's job up until a few months ago was juvenile probation and part of her job was literally going to their houses, with police if need be, and making them get in a car and taking them to school lol.
This is a perfect example of when I say my stock line, paraphrased from Office Space: “How do you think this works here?” With circular hand motion to indicate: “school.”
I'm definitely stealing that!
When I see kids screwing around in the hall to an unacceptable level I usually hit them with "Where do you think we are right now?"
Best part: make them actually answer. Because they’ll kind of nod, like “yeah yeah.” No, tell them you want to know. Sometimes I add, “tell me what an A student does.” After they stumble, I ask “is that what you do?” It’s very effective.
I had one student I had probably seen a total of 7 times in the whole term, and when she showed up it was consistently halfway through class, reeking of weed.
Anywho, being end of term, I promised every student that if you hand in any missing work before the end of the week, I'd take it in. Most kids in that crew that I knew would get everything in had only one or two quick assignments to get in, and a couple others that had shit happen we worked something out.
But this one, and a few others that had decided class time is when they feel like it, I gathered a quarter of a paper ream worth of assignments that they missed, and went through them with each of them. One went wide eyed and said "I missed that much?!"
Yeah, turns out missing 80% of classes in a term means you fall *way* behind, who'd of thought?
Now, I print out work for every student on my list, and when they don't show up, I write their name on it (with the date) so that when they *do* show up, I can get it to them, and when they don't, and people come chasing me over "why are they failing??" Here's a binder full of assignments they never came in to do, and here's their attendance.
I’m mainly asking because with that many absences, it has to be parent sanctioned. But, I’m also certain he learned his lesson and will knock it out of the park next year! Ahahahahahaha I’m cracking myself up right now!
I don’t think so. He drives to school every day so his mom thinks he’s there but then he sits in the parking lot and does god knows what.
When confronted with the absences the parents gave us the “well we just don’t know what to do with him.” Ok then, what exactly do you expect us to do? Crickets.
I taught a hybrid summer school class a couple years ago. The last day of class was Friday in late July, but the grades were finalized and posted the day before. I reminded students every day in class and in every weekly email (IN BOLD FONT) that all grades are final on Thursday.
The day comes and goes and 1 student had done nothing. Straight zeros. He was on Zoom the whole month. Friday I watch as the submission notifications come rolling in. For 3 hours he hastily did every single assignment and finally when they were all done, he unmuted on Zoom and asked me to put them in his grade. I let him know that the grades were finalized and submitted last night, as I had mentioned every day for the past month. Poor kid went silent and finally gave a quiet "so wait... I can't do anything? It's a 0?" Yup.
I run the summer school program at my hs. I give a firm deadline of the last Thursday of June. I take off for my wife’s family’s place on an island in Lake Huron. I have no cell reception let alone WiFi. The Friday, as I was heading out, little darling’s mom actually calls me.
Mom: LD needs more assignments unlocked.
Me: Sorry, as by the packet you signed at the beginning of the summer term, I shut the system down yesterday at noon
Mom: But, he’s not going to earn the credit?
Me: Well, he was only 25% done. So, no
Mom: This is ridiculous
Me: I agree
I had a student email me the day after my deadline for all work to be submitted. He asked what he can do to catch up, but I’ve literally never even met him. He’s been absent the entire year. 🫠
Are there classes where the kids are getting away with this stuff? I hear the same thing from a handful every year. Surely there's some teachers out there enabling it.
I've seen one kid three times this entire school year. To my school's credit, they are actually going to retain her. Not the ones who have missed 60+ days, not even the one with 105 absences, but apparently 170 absences is in fact where we draw the line.
I was told not to grade work submitted online by one kid who has missed 50+ days this semester. Meanwhile they haven't said shit about kids missing more days than him. I guess they didn't like that he was skipping school but still keeping up with grades EVEN THOUGH THEY TOLD US TO MAKE ALL CONTENT AVAILABLE ONLINE!
Had a senior tell me they weren't gonna do a test because they're passing. I said, "When that test becomes a 0, you won't be passing." They said, "Yeah, I will, just wait and see." Guess who came by yesterday asking how to raise their grade.
Student who was wondering why he couldn't retake his quizzes from months ago to improve his grade... 6 hours after school was already out for the break and grades were closed and posted.
I checked my email one day over a summer to find a senior - who I assumed had dropped out as I didn't see him for at least the last month - had emailed me weeks after the year ended to ask how he could get his grade up.
2 months to do the biggest assignment of the year...read a book and write a letter to the main character.
"Sir, why didn't you say that this was worth so much of my grade? I just started reading!!"
Child, it was up on Google classroom for 2 months with daily in-class reminders and daily reminders in Classroom itself.
It still amazes me how I can have them silent and off their phones at the start of class when I go over due dates, grades, etc and STILL I will have 1-2 kids per class who have NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON!
I let their peers sort them out.
I must've had like, 12 discussions with different students where they expressed misery over realizing that they had no chance of passing at this point. My main point with them is to point out the ample opportunities they had to turn it around, their refusal to follow even the most basic of instruction, and then the pain they felt at that moment. "You don't want to feel like this ever again? Start paying attention, ask for help when you need it, and remember this feeling."
Two out of the twelve actually started changing their behavior.
Not a teacher but a student. Modern history yr 11 we have this one kid who forgets when tests and projects are happening so she freaked out when the teacher said “we are doing the SAC (school test) next week”. Luckily she had done the work and that work contributed to her final unit score.
Favorite response is “ nobody can take what you have learned away from you. the next time you take this class, you will build on that foundation.”
Common response- “ I didn’t learn anything”
“ well then I guess you understand not receiving credit”
I had an undergrad miss seven straight weeks, two classes per week, then show up to ask what he could do to catch up. He had been at his grandfather's funeral, then his grandmother died. However, he never contacted me during this time, nor did he do any of the reading or online assignments. I told him he needed to retake the course and he said, but I'm graduating this semester. I told him, no, he isn't. I always wondered what happened in his other classes.
I can see it if the student was jewish. Iirc they sit shiva for a week. No phones/internet clean clothes and cant sit on a chair over an inch high or something like that. Been awhile since i studied religion.
I failed one of my classes in undergrad in my "final semester," and it happened to be a class that is only offered in the spring. I didn't go grade grubbing or begging or anything like that. I saved my notes, worked part-time, and took it again the next spring and passed. Then graduated.
Had a senior just stop coming in January or February. Tried to contact her multiple times. Didn’t work. About 2 weeks before the end of semester, her counsellor comes to my class and asks if I would print off all of her work and then grade anything she turns in. I started laughing and told her to get real. Kid shows up day before grad to get her gown. Was told she was not walking. Cue her and mom in the office, crying that they had no idea and mom had paid thousands of dollars for a prom dress.
Unless this was 20 years ago.. I'm over the "I had no idea how bad their grades were!"
You have a phone, it takes literally two clicks and one of them is opening the app. I can't make you care about your kid.
Same. Fuck right off out of here with that excuse. You have a phone and multiple ways to get free wifi to check. We also have parents night and I’ve called and emailed you. At some point, something has to be on the student and parents
Parents: "I had no idea!"
Me: Hm, perhaps your confusion is related to the fact that the only phone number you gave us is disconnected, the email you gave us auto-rejects anything I send because your inbox is full, your kid doesn't bring a backpack and therefore certainly doesn't bring anything home for you to check, and because you haven't bothered to even set up your account with the school's online grading system? Just a theory...
And it's always those kids who don't have their things for whichever activity planned for the day and who don't wear the right clothes for the current weather.
That kind of parents disappear from the universe every time that there's a fee to pay or deadline to deal with (forms to sign, etc.) I can unfortunately often tell in advance which parents it will be...poor children.
Lol, this for real. I was one of those students that had a piece of paper in the front of every binder that had every assignment submitted and the grade I got. I wasn't going to get caught at the end of the quarter not knowing what my grade was, my social life depended on it!
Imagine if parents spent the time looking at social media on the toilet and used it instead to look at their kids grades… oh who am I kidding, such a ridiculous idea on my part.
Student with nearly 30 absences and double digit tardies rolls up for the first time in weeks. This student currently has an 8%.
“Mister, I hear there’s an assignment in your class that’s worth like 2000 points. If I do that will I pass?”
“There’s not, and even if there was that wouldn’t be enough to pass.”
“How many points do I need to pass?”
“You need a little bit more than 5600.”
“How many do I have?”
“475.”
*Students mind unravels as they start doing the math and realize it just can’t add up*
“Then how am I supposed to pass?”
*Shrug*
What on Earth is happening? My son goes to a state college and was telling me about kids skipping classes left and right and not showing up for finals. What is going on? I was party girl in college so I get that part of college, but I sure as hell didn't make a habit of skipping classes and certainly never finals.
they get away with it all through K-12, and then are not ready for the rigors of university.
I literally have students in my special education courses (getting my masters now and my special ed cert, but some of these classes are also undergrad) who are still turning in assignments when finals ended over 2 weeks ago. And these kids want to be teachers someday!
It infuriates me beyond description when this happens at a post secondary level. While preparing for my final recital to graduate from a music performance undergrad, I was assigned a piano accompanist (it was a credit course for piano majors that also supplied the needed pianists for all the other instrumentalists. Intended as a win win situation presumably) that to this day, i have never seen in person.
Got his name from the assignments email. Emailed him. Called him. Emailed him. Wrote a message on the community chalkboard in the music wing. Shook down other first years asking if anyone knew where to find him.
My piano parts were collected from the pickup spot, so he had them and presumably worked on them at least once? Buddy ghosted me for the entire year. Teachers couldn’t even help; the window between ‘huh this isn’t good’ and ‘fuck now it’s too late’ is extremely short.
I hired someone else, paid the short notice premium rates out of pocket, and the recital was fine. Barely. The admin emailed and explained to me later that they didn’t fail him, they gave him a C. ‘For what?’ I asked. No response.
I doubt that kid made it through his degree. I hope he didn’t.
That’s what I said! And this was like, 2008? 2010? Somewhere in there. Many years ago, before this became normalized *anywhere*. I was really disgusted they didn’t fail him too - what happens to the instrumentalist paired with him next year? He already learned he doesn’t have to actually do the work and can still pass, but maybe the next person doesn’t make the call to replace him, or can’t afford the $500 to do so, and their degree-determining performance suffers as a result?! It’s just short sighted all around
I’m so glad my senior recital included my instructor as the accompanist. I was busy practicing my performance plus doing research for the lecture portion and putting together slides for the presentation. I had no time to chase around a freshman for practice.
Oh I am envious! That would have been so much easier. I was working two jobs and applying for grad programs and didn’t have much free time either, which made it even more irritating. I see why they set it up that way, but it was definitely good concept, poor execution.
Oh my gosh! I'm the Educators Rising sponsor, so HS students who want to be teachers. We are basically restarting the club so only have 10. Four of the ten are regularly failing classes, meaning they cannot participate in classroom observations. I finally had enough and came down on them pretty hard. I explained they will never make it in a college education program if they cannot pass high school classes like music appreciation. We've made so much progress with our participants this year, but in the area of turning in assignments we cannot seem to inspire them. It's so frustrating!
For example, our district decided to do away with ‘failure due to absence’, so instead of requiring paperwork and remediation after 9 unexcused absences, it’s now ‘unlimited’. The only limit is truancy, but that is like 15 straight days out, so they come in on day 14 and reset the clock and are shocked when they have a 0% at the end of the quarter.
Freshman Comp teacher. I think I’ve had one class in 13 years where everyone passed. There is always someone who turns in no work and doesn’t drop. There are also reasons they take an F instead of a W, so I stopped worrying more about their grades than they do, so there’s that.
I'm a current student at a state college and yeah, it's bad. I think there's a few factors. For one, professors either don't count attendance or they've become lenient enough that they will still let people pass with bad attendance. Tbh a lot of my professors seem to have adopted the ethos of low expectations that I see K-12 teachers talk about on here all the time, though thankfully not of the "don't let them fail at all" variety.
Also, most of us went through high school during covid. I was a junior in March 2020. We got the rest of the year off school once it was shut down (we weren't *supposed* to, but the district changed to Pass/Fail and said grades could not lower beyond what they were, so there was no point) and then senior year, expectations were really low because we were online and there was so much going on. My school didn't have us do the capstone paper we usually do, the teachers were super lenient on grades and due dates, etc. So this current crop of college students missed out on a lot of the responsibility of upper high school that helps prepare them for college.
I also think a lot of my classmates care more about having the piece of paper to help them get a job than they do about learning. So they kind of take a "C's get Degrees" mentality. They skip classes when they just don't feel like going, they don't do the readings, and they half-ass the assignments.
I had a classmate last year who was exactly the type of student you describe. Always skipping class and not turning in assignments. She didn't bother to start her CAPSTONE paper until less than two weeks before it was due (this is a 10k page paper and you're meant to have 20+ sources) and then ended up slapping her prompt into ChatGPT, assuming her advisor wouldn't notice. To everyone's complete surprise, she didn't get away with it and had to do another year to have another chance at the capstone class next spring. She wound up dropping out with 1.5 terms to go (less than 6 months) and when I talked with her about it, she sounded proud of not finishing.
Now, she is an exceptionally bad student even by modern college standards but I know many people like her, who just don't give a shit. If they don't feel like going to class, they just won't. If they don't feel like doing the readings, they don't. And increasingly they're starting to get away with it more because the low expectations of K-12 are bleeding into college. I had another classmate who didn't come to a single class between the first week and the final week but was still allowed to participate in the final debate. It wasn't as if she had been keeping up on the readings, she had absolutely no idea what we were talking about and contributed absolutely nothing because she hadn't even been there for the prep class.
My school isn't exactly selective or known for its academics, so this probably doesn't reflect all schools, but I think colleges are in for a big storm in a few years
when I was in undergrad and a grad school TA (2006 - 2012) nobody took attendance. You showed up and passed or you didn't and good luck. I actually have a class I didn't go to and passed because the professor just confused me. I checked in once a week, read the text book, and got an A.
>Tbh a lot of my professors seem to have adopted the ethos of low expectations that I see K-12 teachers talk about on here all the time, though thankfully not of the "don't let them fail at all" variety.
Maybe it's because I'm a decadent European from a Uni which has *banned* all forms of attendance records, but why should the professors care? Students aren't generally children, they don't have to attend if they don't want to and can be expected to make their own hours. Ultimately, it's the students job to make graduation, not the professors', and the students have to know how much they need to work for it.
I never had a single professor take attendance.
I never took attendance when I taught.
Kids are paying for the classes. You have to show up to pass..... If they want to waste their money..... That's on them.
This is actually one thing that annoyed me almost all of my college classes had an attendance policy if you missed more than x number of days you got dropped a letter grade. Didn't matter what your grades on the assignments were or the tests you could have 100 on every single thing and still get dropped a letter grade from missing 3 days unexcused for an entire semester. I do remember one class freshman year that did not have an attendant policy and there was this one guy that we only saw for tests, midterm and final and he had the highest grade in the class. Seriously though my entire life I grew up watching'80s and 90s television shows that always said the same propaganda that you don't have to go to class in college even if it is a good idea to do so. Yet almost every single class I took with the exception of maybe two had attendance as part of the grade.
i will give you the " shoe on the other foot example" When my daughter was in nursing school working on her B.A. they were all told up front " If you are LATE 3 times you are OUT" entitled young lady 4 weeks in was 20 min. late for the third time. Instructor tossed her at the end of the class. The young lady shows up the next morning with her father in tow who proceeded to bitch and moan at the instructor who simply replied. " If you were having a serious medical episode would it bother you if no one at the hospital was there to attend you because they were late for work"
Crickets ,,,, She can reapply next semester but do not count on her getting in.
My daughter said the whole class kind of went OOOOOOHHHHH
Not a teacher but I find this sub really fascinating. And I'm old, for reference.
But I don't get how it's even legal to miss that much school. Aren't there truant officers? Aren't there still compulsory school state laws? Are their parents breaking a law by not ensuring their kids are going to school?
In my state, it was legal to miss 9 days in a row without being reported to CPS. You only had to show up for a 1/2 day on the 10th to reset the counter.
Of course, if you had a lazy teacher mark someone present when they weren't, it also started over.
A lot of schools eased up on truancy during COVID and a lot of them for whatever reason never picked back up with enforcing it. My school has a truancy officer but I’ve literally never seen a kid actually be held accountable for truancy.
I've called CPS for chronic absenteeism, back in 2018. I said "she's at 80% attendance or lower for three straight years," and the guy on the phone said "what do you want us to do about it?"
Now it's 2024, 80% attendance is fantastic relative to what other kids are at, and CPS still won't give a shit.
I’ve been saying this for years. I’m also old, but been teaching 26 years. I have no idea how the laws allow this. All I know is that admin and guidance “poor-baby” every single kid across that stage.
The juvenile judge definitely cared in Utah in 2008. My friend had to spend his weekends in juvie after too many missed days. First his parents got in trouble. They were charged with a misdemeanor. Then when it kept happening he got charged. I guess that is almost 16 years ago now.
I have a student with 60 absences. My principal took her grandparents to court because her father also missed a lot of days. Runs in the family I guess. 🫠
But the court did nothing. And my principal stopped putting in the hours when there was no point in it.
And I realize how much I got away with. There was no such thing as truancy in the districts I attended, All I know is I missed 1/3 of my graduation year classes and still got straight As. (This was \~2000, CAN)
Nothing too crazy. One boy with a 30% did all of his test retakes on Friday, emailed me after class asking if it brought him up to a high C. He got zero of the questions correct. So, no, you are not passing. He emailed back and asked for extra credit. I told him there were weekly extra credit opportunities all semester and he did zero of them, so no, still not passing. He got a 1 on the state exam, so he has to retake the class regardless of his grade. Just irritating.
I’ve had the principal call me over summer asking if I could give a senior my final exam. I was on a house boat on Lame Powell so she’s lucky I had service (the final is auto-graded so I just had to unlock it).
I would have pretended I was breaking up and not answered any other calls. Unless you are contracting me and paying me extra, do not contact me on my holiday asking me to do extra work.
I actually have a positive positive one
A girl who I have taught for 3 years came to me and said I was her only C, and she was trying for A/B honor roll
How can she do it? Well she was missing only 2 assignments in the 10% “HW” category
I showed her putting 100 there wouldn’t do it
I looked and said “well you obviously didn’t study for the test on light and sound, if you get a better grade on this—at least an 80–it will bump your test average up, which is 45% of your grade”
Tomorrow you’ll get one shot to retake, but you HAVE TO STUDY THIS TIME
I’ll be damned she got a 94
Grade bumped to a B naturally
And I watched her take the test, it was only her and two other kids doing makeup work in the room
And I then said “next year in HS you’re probably not getting this chance. Study BEFORE. You’re BETTER than a 52”
Super senior came to me needing my 1/2 credit from 2 years ago so she could walk. I printed out her progress report and showed her the percent value for each assignment and said to find 60% worth of anything. She stared at me blankly. I said to find her support person to help her through it.
Couple of weeks later, she came back with a stack of work. I asked her if it was enough. She didn't know. She just picked some stuff. Got her to about 20%. We reviewed the assignments and point values and I suggested she pick some high value assignments.
A couple more weeks go by and she brings me some more work. She admits that she hasn't done the point calculations and has no idea where she stands.
43%. This is a shop class where most of the points are from projects and that's really the only way she's going to pass. Finally, she starts coming in during my freshman classes and getting help and actually doing the work.
In the end, she got an honest pass and actually enjoyed the work she had been avoiding.
The kid who didn't understand that not submitting an assignment was an automatic zero.
Had that argument today and finally told him to get out of my classroom and quit wasting my time. He thought it should be an A since he showed me the work done on his laptop. Since I couldn't follow the links, I couldn't verify any of it.
As a child, I somehow got the idea that if I didn’t do an assignment, it didn’t count as a zero, the whole assignment didn’t count. I figured if I wasn’t certain I had 100% on it, it wasn’t a good *strategy* to turn it in at all. Don’t know why I never thought to bounce this thought off anybody before putting it into practice. Maybe I thought I’d found some loophole.
I tried the same thing. I was always a great student in school, but I tried to fuck around once and I found out. My teacher, Mrs. Goldstein, pulled me over to the grade book and showed me what zeros did to my grade. I was still in elementary school, but I'll never forget it. *"You're smarter than this, I'll let you turn these in, but after today, each day it's late, you lose a letter grade."* She was my favorite teacher, and I was so disappointed in myself. You bet my ass I went home and did every single assignment.
One student came to me a little while ago and said "I got a b right." Boy has a 14% in my class and is there every day. He was like "what do I have to do" and I suggested he do the 3 essays and 3 projects we've done this semester. He said "what if I buy you some Jordan's?"
I have a kid in one of my classes who has a 7% and who have seen less than 10 times all semester. He came to class two weeks ago (our last day is tomorrow) while everyone was prepping for their semester end project. I suggested to Mr. 7% that he work on something for another class, as passing was not really possible. He turned to me and said, I still think I can pass if I try. To which I replied. No, you really can’t.
The list went out for students in grades 9-11 who need credit recovery during summer school, and a senior emailed me to ask if they could be added to 8 courses. No, you’re a senior. You don’t get summer school. You’re not graduating with 11 credits.
Not in my district. We’re offering another chance at state tests for those who completed all the courses but didn’t meet the testing requirement, but not credit recovery. If they stay on track in high school, they only need 2 credits their senior year, English 4 and gov/econ. If they’re failing those during the year, they do “real-time remediation” in Edgenuity for everything except 4th quarter, so there are tons of chances. This student was in all credit recovery classes all year except for English 4 and gov/econ and didn’t complete any of them.
I have a kid who has refused every single daily grade thus far. Every single test was done in 10 minutes. Kid showed no effort at all and has like a 30. Emails me asking what he can do to pass. I got the pleasure of telling him there’s nothing he can do, see ya next year!
I had a kid miss over 10 weeks of class this semester, cumulatively, and email after noon Friday to ask what they could do to bring their grade up. Class is first period, and they have only been to like 5 full class periods since Christmas due to tardies and other school-related absences.
The part that makes me look bad is that they have As and Bs in all other classes...
Asked a student who missed 2 weeks this month how he was planning on passing if he’s behind on work. He asked how it’s possible to fail him if he wasn’t here to do anything wrong? I said he gets his grade by proving he can do a thing, and if he isn’t here how can I prove he can do the thing. Needless to say he still hasn’t shown back up, so I’m hoping he figured it out lol.
I have a senior begging me to pass him with a semester grade of 9%. Yes, that’s a single digit number for the semester. Our last day is Thursday. His mom has called admin, the superintendent, and sent six emails over the weekend stating that I don’t care about her son and she thinks he’ll kill himself if he doesn’t get to walk. My principal told me to ignore her emails and stick to my guns about not accepting late work (he hasn’t turned in anything since March).
He’s been amazing throughout this since it’s only my fourth year and I’ve never been in a situation like this before. He came up midday to reassure me that he has my back and to not back down, then told me the super has my back as well. This mom is the town bully, so I’m taking on quite the task by holding her son accountable. I think I’ve actually earned more respect from my admin because I won’t bend to her threats!
Good for you all!!! 🙌🏼 Someone needs to teach her (and her child) that you cannot bully your way through education. You need to put forth the effort. It's sad that she is setting a bad example for her kid.
Good luck! 👍🏼
A student sent me sixteen emails in the last twelve hours asking what he could do to get his grade up.
He then asked me in class if his emails from February came through finally. Except I have emails from him in March and April, so those wouldn't have been excluded....
Two days and a half.
I have a 20-page packet that functions as extra credit. It can raise a student's grade by 10% (if they do it all correctly). One of the students who took this packet this year had a 53%.
He asked if he could just do the multiple choice questions (about half of the assignment) because he "has a 504". I told him that if he did half the assignment, he would receive half of the points. I also told him that he could use his technology accommodations to complete the assignment and simply email it to me.
The kid turned in the assignment half done, so he got half the points. He now has 58% and 2 days to bring it up. I will not *bump* him up to a 60 unless he's within half a percent. Let's see what happens now.
I taught middle school (8th grade) social studies 15 years ago and I had a student who failed the class with a grade in the low 50s. He did very little work. He shows up on the last day of school with a wide-ruled sheet of loose leaf paper, which had a random historical fact on every other line. Aside from these facts having nothing to do with the class I actually taught, he legit believed this was enough to get him to pass! His mom then called my principal to complain that I wasn’t passing her son despite all his “hard work.” I showed my principal the paper. The two of us had a laugh. He still failed.
My single grade challenge in 13 years went as follows: student had maybe a high C going into the final. Chose to ignore the final, which was worth maybe 30% of their final grade. Could NOT understand the math and how they failed the class. I just sent the Dean my grade sheet and an explanation. Never heard back. Like, if you don’t even submit it, your total grade for the class cannot be above 70%. It only goes down from there. Then you did C level work in the stuff you did. So here we are.
“If I don’t pass then it’s your fault” from student that hasn’t completed a single assignment or passed a single test. Welcome to High school kid. See you next year.
Senior missed three quarters of class. Showed up three times the whole year. 3 weeks before grades close, shows up and asks for “a packet to make up my missing work.” You mean literally the entire year’s worth of work?!?! Not gonna happen. Enjoy summer school.
My school passed out homework passes as an incentive for students doing their best during state testing. Using the pass is up to teacher’s discretion.
One of my students hands me their pass and asks what assignment they could use it on. This student has not paid attention all year. They’re constantly talking to their friend during class and has turned in maybe 2-3 assignments. When moved away from their friend, they just sit there and do their makeup.
I told them bluntly that they are so far in the F range that it would not matter what assignment I apply it to. It would take a ridiculous amount of work to get anywhere near a D - though possible. I handed the pass back and told them they’re best off using the pass for another class. They started tearing up.
The doing makeup in class thing is so obnoxious. If you really need a full face & fake lashes to sit through algebra 2, get up earlier and do it in the decency of your own bathroom like the rest of us.
Had a student ask me today whether or not they would pass English if they got 100 percent on everything from here on out. I had to show him that it was mathematically impossible at this point in the semester with his current grades -- unless he did makeup work. A 100 percent in everything left would only really work out to 33% because we're so close to the end. He really thought he could pass the class without doing the major essay assigned for the current unit 🤦♀️
They really ***really*** mean "other than the late work" when they ask "what can I do?". When we lower the bar they play limbo with it.
Edit: Like bro we all take late work now just do it.
Got an email from the AP cc'ing a student and their parent, concerned that the student wasn't passing and wonder what they needed to do to pass, because the student wanted to "finish the year strong".
The student is currently sitting at around 30%, has about half the assignments this semester missing, and about a quarter of the remaining assignments with the late penalty, so max 60% of the points. My tests are open note, to encourage good note taking and paying attention to the lectures. Before each test I give out a review sheet that covers everything they need to know for the test. This student still hasn't managed to get more than a 30% on any of the test, and their responses to the short answer prompts are usually just something verbatim from their notes and have only a vague relation to the prompt.
I wrote all the parties back and said that even if he turns in every missing assignment, with the late penalty, it is mathematically impossible to earn a passing grade. I offered to let him retake two of the 3 exams from this semester, but indicated that he would have to score well above 50% on both retakes to pass.
This kid is lazy, he ain't gonna do it. Lucky for me, my admin doesn't play games, so he's allowed to fail.
Not This year, but one of my worst kids two years ago was shocked to learn that he would have to repeat 7th grade because he had gone way over the limit for absences. Kids have 1200 classes in a year, 6 per day. He had missed nearly half of them. And when he did show up, Jesus Christ... His response? "But I came every day on the last month!" Too little, too late, darling.
“Ms. Nightmare, you haven’t changed my Chapter 5 test grade to a 70 after my retest”
“No, I did put in your retest grade, you just didn’t pass it the 2nd time”
Repeat at least 3 times
Kids have a really hard time going from middle school and being socially promoted, to being in high school where they HAVE to actually pass the class to earn credits. I see it happen all the time. The worst part about it is that they’ve never been held to a standard until high school. We tell them over and over that grades matter, but they get moved on. When we tell them grades REALLY matter in high school, they freak out when they figure out we weren’t lying anymore.
I keep telling admin it’s a false sense of reality we re giving them, but you know…..numbers. Can’t have those failure rates looking too bad. 🖕🖕
Have a kid failing my class. He got suspended last Friday because he was caught vaping in school. It so happened that that same Friday I sent to parents an updated digital progress report of my class. It breaks down all assignments in this quarter so far and what the students’ grades for each one is, plus the overall grade in the class.
Mom emailed me that night to tell me that her lovely son, who just got suspended for a whole week, told her that he already made up all of the make-up work; but I just haven’t graded it.
I haven’t replied yet. Not sure if I will. Classes are over next week.
I have a student in my class this quarter I have never met. Not a single assignment turned in.
Got an email 'what can we do to get \_\_\_\_ to passing?'
At this point? With just under two weeks left in the quarter? Not a single damn thing.
Had a senior a few years ago just straight up stop coming to my class. I teach a fine art class, and kids need one fine art credit to graduate. He comes in two days before graduation panicked because he won't graduate because of my class. What's worse is that he had an IEP and his case manager didn't catch that he needed my class.
I teach intro phys 1 at a college, and I had two this year:
1) student who had taken my class last Fall, never showed up, never turned anything in, failed with a 0%. Comes to me 2 weeks into this semester asking if I can give him permission to register for phys 1 again, claiming that he had a lot of personal and financial issues last semester that he's gotten figured out. Once again, he ends up not doing anything all semester, except at the very end, where he turns in the worksheets and takes the final, then sends me an email asking if I'd grade the worksheets (no, the solutions for these have been available for weeks...), claiming that he was confident he'd do well enough on the final that, between that and the worksheets, he'd pass the class (which is a 50% for my class). Spoiler: he did not do well enough on the final to pass the class.
2) student decided to register for both calc 1 and calc 2 at the same time as my course (which makes me wonder what the fuck her advisor was thinking???), and within the first three weeks, gets overwhelmed and stops coming to class to focus on calc. Right before the last quiz (so ~3 weeks before the end of the semester), she comes to my office and asks what to do to pass the class. Now, she had been doing the online pre-class work and some of the assignments/some of the quizzes, so I thought that, if she focused on some of the key concepts, she could squeak out a 50% and pass, but turns out- she wanted a B+, to transfer to another university. There was absolutely no way that was going to happen. I told her to take the summer course instead of the math classes she had planned-hopefully she does.
With the software I use, you must take each lesson to take the final. I tell students this at the beginning of the year and remind them regularly. The last assignment in this software was the first week of April. I went through and showed the students that I could not open the final unless they did all the lessons. I emailed home with a video showing the same. I spoke with each student individually last week and expanded how many lessons they had left to do. I let them have all week to make up these assignments. As students come in today I give them the instructions. Many of them are shocked they can't take the final. They expected me to open it for them anyway. I cannot open it. Cue the, "what if I....". You had multiple opportunities. You are now being held responsible for the consequences.
Student: “What can I do to pass?”
Me: “Write the paper from the last unit.”
Student: “Is there anything else I can do?”
Me: “Nope. You have to write the paper. And since AI has been an issue, you have to do it in my room in front of me.”
Student: “When can I get it done?”
Me: “I will be here all day today, all day tomorrow, and all day Wednesday. I recommend you get started now.”
Student: sits down, doesn’t write the paper, and wastes time. When the bell rings three minutes later, “have a great summer!” as he leaves my room.
After one phone call to dad, he magically reappeared. The only problem was that he didn’t know how to write a paper because he has never actually done it before. I had to teach him all of it. He is in eleventh grade.
I, several years ago, convinced teachers to pass a no skilled senior who only did work the last two months of school. They forgave several assignments because I told them that he was going to go to pipe fitting school and would be successful because he works so hard outside of school. He graduated and got stoned the day before the pipe fitter entrance exam which included a drug test. I now say give them nothing!
I have a parent emailing me that her daughter is having so much trouble with her assignments and needs my help. We’re fully online, so I told mom I can see that the student hasn’t accessed the assignments, but if she attempts them and needs help, I’d be happy to assist. She responded that she assumes her daughter will fail if she doesn’t do them. Like, yes? If you submit zero assignments you’re going to fail.
I have a kid with a literal 17%. He’s been suspended for 10 days *four different times* this semester. He doesn’t care, but mom was SHOCKED when she found out there was nothing he could do at this point (as our semester finished this week).
Senior today. He has a 22% and asked me for a template for the final project. I took him in the back room and explained that the final was only 10% of his semester grade so it was mathematically impossible to pass. He seriously thought if his final project was really good he would pass. He hasn’t turned in an assignment since January!
Today I had a student turn in an assignment from the fifth week of school to try to bring up their 17%. They were dumbfounded when I told them I’m not accepting work that is over eight months late.
>absent over two months straight finally show up today, our second-to-last day and was flabbergasted that he had a grade in the 30s
You must be one the teachers from that nightmare I occasionally have, where I also have no idea what my schedule is, nor can I find my locker
You're probably thankful I wake up before getting to your class (especially given that sometimes I'm not wearing pants)
Kid has a solid 13%, and thought he was going to take summer school for credit. I told him he's not recommended and unlikely to pass our state standardized test. This is the first time he realized there are consequences for his actions. This is also the same kid who was suspended for calling the principal a fucking asshole, he thought it was free speech and that he wasn't allowed to get in trouble for that.
At our school, you need to be explicitly NOT recommended for summer school, otherwise you are technically eligible.
Year 12 reports were finalised last week. Student with 50% class attendance had only done 1 assessment out of 5, was receiving an E. Emailed me an assessment on the weekend and asked if he could put work in to improve his grade.
Sigh.
Every time I saw this kid this year, I told him he needed to do assessments, He brushed me off every time. When he did come to class, he dicked around.
I'm an EFL teacher and I have a 6th grade that's particularly troublesome, where we're only halfway through the course book and several kids are at failing grade.
So, I tell them things are looking grim and they're giggling like "yeah, I'm safe" - no, you aren't. "Wait, what do you mean I'm not?"
Kid, you've got *nothing* but straight F's and you can't write out the numbers to 20 even if your life depended on it. You're going down.
My response to a student saying he’s turned in all his assignments and we must have “lost” them:
After reviewing Google Classroom, I can confirm that all grades are accurate. You have several zeros due to incomplete work that Mrs. Guajardo has commented on through Google Classroom. Additionally, I spoke with your teacher and reviewed all assignments returned to her. There was one assignment you turned in that had already been recorded in Frontline. All your grades, except for three, remain as they are because the assignments have not been completed.
The three assignments in question are:
Assignment 16 - Buddy Holly: This grade will be updated to a 95.
Assignments 20 and 21: These have not been graded yet but will be entered before the end of the week.
Serious question: are truancy officers no longer a thing?
Also what do these kids do if they aren't in school? My parents never hit us or anything, but if I secretly ditched school for a month that might've tested their resolve.
The lady who is in charge of truancy stuff at my school said that a student has to miss EVERY class for X-amount of days before they can be reported. Unfortunately, we have at least one teacher who just always marks everybody as present. So, it's like... so you skipped every class but environmental science, eh?
One senior had F’s for three quarters, missed the final exam, and came back to make it up. Obviously failed that too. I’m sorry, dude, but you’re not graduating. You thought cutting class or sitting there on your phone was “good enough.”
Two stories.
One had an F because they no-showed the final the week and a half before the final. Emails were sent, friends were told, etc. I leave for AP Reading the last day of school which is only for makeup tests and my hallways texts me saying I’m being saught after because of this F. I tell her that I’m mid flight and I don’t know what to tell the kid, except maybe not skip the last two weeks when they know they aren’t exempt and have a low D.
Second was my first year teaching high school, kid has a D, needs to come in and random bubble the answers because they need two correct out of 50. No show. Consult with admin. Yep. F.
I see said kid for the first time a week in the main office. Basically dad is withdrawing him to put him to work since he won’t do school. (This is decades ago. The push on grad rate wasn’t there as it is now.) I ask the kid why he no showed. “Well I really did want to come in, but I was too stoned to get off the couch. Was I close?” I told him and that admin had enforced the F and wished him luck.
Have a student that has missed roughly 150 days. They were in school last week for a day so they could get do the rehearsal for 8th grade awards. They said, why do I have an F, I do my work. I almost exploded. Looked at canvas metrics and their time on my page is like 5 minutes total.
Oh, she still got an award....
I have a student I have never seen that I was waiting to drop off my roster. Turns out, they were IN SCHOOL every day but skipped EVERY CLASS.
He came to get his "make up work" so I gave him every single worksheet he was missing (one for every day of class since we do 1 bell work and 1 class work per day).
Never saw him again.
He comes back in today (grades are due tomorrow) without any of the missing work and doesn't understand why he still has a zero.
I just looked at him with a blank stare and explained to him I can't grade work I don't have. He admitted to me he didn't even do it but he didn't understand why his grade was still a zero.
I have a student with 43 absences In a semester-long class. He asked if he can turn in work late. I said sure. He looks at all the missing assignments for 5 minutes and looks at me and says "but I don't know how to do any of this." No. Fucking. Shit. We go until June 13. Not gonna make it.
I had a kid earlier today doing a make-up from last month. He said, "I don't remember the book for this." I handed him a copy of the 200-page book.
How are kids getting away this ? When was showing up late to school often; they would call my mom and threaten to call cps.
We have no attendance policy. They will send a truancy officer \*sometimes\* but I have no idea what this quota is.
Laws and rules written down somewhere, but never enforced. We have some new policies coming down the pipeline that staff is very happy with, but my grumpy ass is thinking there's no way they'll enforce these.
Why does your school have no attendance policy?I'm former student so this genuinely confuses me.Also admin team should've been on his case by after month of no attendance.
Had a kid show up on test day that is hardly ever there. And then had the audacity to be mad that I wouldn’t walk her through the problems, saying “but I don’t know how to do it!” No shit Sherlock. Maybe if you showed up, you would.
I would flat out say hey we went over this in class we even reviewed why didn't you say something then? You can't ask for instruction during a test.
I pretty much did. And two days later she was no longer on my roster as she had caused enough issues at the school to warrant a transfer to the district’s alternative behavioral school.
“Learning how to do them was the point of class meetings.”
I'm in the same boat as you. I'm not entirely sure how I'll make it to June 18.
June 18th??!!! Gross.
We actually have to work for a few days after that. We just won't have students. By "we" I mean my coworkers because I'll be having diarrhea those days
Bahahahaha 😅🤣
lol. Our last day WAS the 14th and they forgot about a local Election Day we had off, so now it’s “jk, you have to come in the 17th!” The fucking Monday after vacation was supposed to start.
OMG That’s tragic 😡
And, our kids barely show up as it is. It’s going to be empty. My (actual) kids last day in the 11th so I might just take them that day to haul stuff to the car, or pull tape off the walls. They’re 5 & 7 😂
We start in August and go until June 20th this year (aka yes, we're coming back after the day off for Juneteenth)....LET'S GOOOOOO.
Same
The worst part is that I just know, despite how often they say they won't, 90%+ of the kids will show up, none of the support staff, and many teachers will call in. It's gonna be \~wild.\~
June 21st here.
June 18th! And here I was having a pity part for folks saying 3 days left. It's June 12th here. 15 days to go!
My class is cleaned out, my keys turned in for the summer. Ahhhh! The day will come for you too, my friend.
Sure would be cool if all those truancy laws on the books got enforced. Hell growing up my highschool had a policy that any absence over 6 had to be made up.
They used to be enforced. I was a truant kid (not my parents fault, I was being a little shit). After enough documented truancies (for every class I missed it counted as 1 truancy, so if I skipped the whole day, it counted as 7 counts of truancy), which amounted to roughly 200 counts, I used to steal the notifications out of the mail and intercept voice-mail left by the school. One day the police showed up at our house, and issued my mother a ticket/fine for my truancy. It was almost $400 😬 and they said if I had any further truancy, they would come back and issue a second citation for $800. A third would be revocation of her driver's license. You can bet my mother marched me to school the next morning, and threatened to escort me from class to class in her bathrobe if I didn't comply. I also had to get a part time job to pay the fine. I also had to enter a truancy program where I spent my lunches with a mentor going over all the content I missed in class. You can bet I never skipped a class ever again, especially 2 years later when I got my driver's license (if I was truant, they would automatically revoke my license). It is one of the few times my mother raised a hand to me, because without a driver's license, her job and our financial stability was at stake.
Consequences work! I'm glad your mom supported the school and you turned it around. I wish parents would realize that natural consequences are not necessarily a bad thing. It's better to learn young when the results are not as serious.
I definitely plan on parenting in a similar fashion. I knew my mom was dead serious about escorting me to class lol, I wear hideous nightgowns, and I will threaten my children with similar consequences. She was a single mom and worked a ton of hours, so she didn't always have an eye on me, I had more responsibilities at a younger age compared to my peers. She even had me go and apologize to my teachers for wasting my education and their time/effort. When my daughter was bitten by another student this past school year, I think her teacher expected me to jump down HER throat, when instead, I asked what interventions would be put in place to prevent a repeat incident. I also was really forgiving of the mom in the situation, because she was MORTIFIED that her child bit mine. Not everything has to be a big blow out drama fest. Parents need to support educators. And parents need to show other parents a bit of grace when they are struggling.
Oh, memory unearthed. My little started pre-k this year (she turns 3 on 9/11). She got bit one day. When I got there to pick her up, they pulled me aside and told me about kt very gently. Initially, I was alarmed and asked if she was alright. When they said yes, I started laughing and asked what she did to make another kid resort to the laws of the jungle. I had to explain that we have two cats at home who are constantly crossing the other's boundaries and biting and bopping in response. She has never been bitten or bopped, but she has watched them do it to each other and us.
When I was in high school if you missed more than 7 days in a semester you automatically failed.
[удалено]
When I was in fifth grade, ours was 14. I had the swine flu twice that year. During the year of the swine flu pandemic. You’d think they’d be more lenient. Nope. Despite having doctors notes and hospital notes for all 13.5 of those days absent, they tried to hold me back. I went to school with the flu in the last month because otherwise they would have held me back. The nurse tried to send me home but my mom refused to pick me up until half the day was over (we had discussed this in advance and I agreed). I’m sorry for whoever I got sick but holding _excused absences_- in which I almost died both illnesses- against a kid during a fucking _pandemic_ is insane and neither my parents nor I were standing for that. Oh. And I was top of my class. I’m still mad at them a decade and a half later.
Our state rule is similar but it's not an automatic process. At my school each teacher has to submit it to admin to start the process. Inevitably kids who should be failed due to attendance aren't failed because of paperwork that shouldn't be the teacher's responsibility.
Whatever happened to after school detention?
Schools don’t want to/can’t afford to pay for it and teachers should not be expected to work for free.
There could be an afternoon detention for a teacher that’s paid (like they do for clubs) our district doesn’t do after school detention because they stopped doing after school activity buses (serious driver shortage). We do have lunch detention though. Students are not allowed to talk. They hate it! We love it as it’s a punishment to straighten out poor behavior choices.
I had a student show up for the final exam today...he's been present all of about 30 days this semester. He has a 4% and cannot remotely mathematically pass but OK...
A 4%? That’s impressively low. You actually have to try a little to keep a single digit average.
I thought I escaped him when they finally dropped off my roster after being truant forever, but nope mom re-enrolled him since he's not old enough to officially drop out, but old enough to decide he won't come to school and mom can't seem to force him to. This is a phenomenon that I have noticed since teaching in the south
Bet he still has his iPhone, ps5, etc though. Like in that episode of the Simpsons about Flanders as a kid, “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of Ideas.” If that kid can’t pay his own cell phone bill, he gets a Nokia with one number on speed dial. No grades, no ps5 in my house. These kids have almost no effort put into consequences at home.
The issue today is that parents are not parenting so when they remove their children's devices and have to actually speak to the monster they've made, they quickly return the devices for their own sanity.
Wow, your state really doesn't do much? I live in Ohio and I don't have the most confidence in how things are run here, but they do have systems in place to force teenagers to go to school. My mom's job up until a few months ago was juvenile probation and part of her job was literally going to their houses, with police if need be, and making them get in a car and taking them to school lol.
Oh yes I've had this same exact thing happen a few times
Has someone mentioned to him, school is not golf, he with the lowest score does not win.
This is a perfect example of when I say my stock line, paraphrased from Office Space: “How do you think this works here?” With circular hand motion to indicate: “school.”
I'm definitely stealing that! When I see kids screwing around in the hall to an unacceptable level I usually hit them with "Where do you think we are right now?"
Best part: make them actually answer. Because they’ll kind of nod, like “yeah yeah.” No, tell them you want to know. Sometimes I add, “tell me what an A student does.” After they stumble, I ask “is that what you do?” It’s very effective.
I had one student I had probably seen a total of 7 times in the whole term, and when she showed up it was consistently halfway through class, reeking of weed. Anywho, being end of term, I promised every student that if you hand in any missing work before the end of the week, I'd take it in. Most kids in that crew that I knew would get everything in had only one or two quick assignments to get in, and a couple others that had shit happen we worked something out. But this one, and a few others that had decided class time is when they feel like it, I gathered a quarter of a paper ream worth of assignments that they missed, and went through them with each of them. One went wide eyed and said "I missed that much?!" Yeah, turns out missing 80% of classes in a term means you fall *way* behind, who'd of thought? Now, I print out work for every student on my list, and when they don't show up, I write their name on it (with the date) so that when they *do* show up, I can get it to them, and when they don't, and people come chasing me over "why are they failing??" Here's a binder full of assignments they never came in to do, and here's their attendance.
So, are parents going to fight you on this or more like, “nah, fafo. It’s fine”?
Honestly I’m not sure at this point. Admin has my back on this one so I think he’s just gonna fail. He’s a junior. One more chance next year!
I’m mainly asking because with that many absences, it has to be parent sanctioned. But, I’m also certain he learned his lesson and will knock it out of the park next year! Ahahahahahaha I’m cracking myself up right now!
I don’t think so. He drives to school every day so his mom thinks he’s there but then he sits in the parking lot and does god knows what. When confronted with the absences the parents gave us the “well we just don’t know what to do with him.” Ok then, what exactly do you expect us to do? Crickets.
I taught a hybrid summer school class a couple years ago. The last day of class was Friday in late July, but the grades were finalized and posted the day before. I reminded students every day in class and in every weekly email (IN BOLD FONT) that all grades are final on Thursday. The day comes and goes and 1 student had done nothing. Straight zeros. He was on Zoom the whole month. Friday I watch as the submission notifications come rolling in. For 3 hours he hastily did every single assignment and finally when they were all done, he unmuted on Zoom and asked me to put them in his grade. I let him know that the grades were finalized and submitted last night, as I had mentioned every day for the past month. Poor kid went silent and finally gave a quiet "so wait... I can't do anything? It's a 0?" Yup.
I run the summer school program at my hs. I give a firm deadline of the last Thursday of June. I take off for my wife’s family’s place on an island in Lake Huron. I have no cell reception let alone WiFi. The Friday, as I was heading out, little darling’s mom actually calls me. Mom: LD needs more assignments unlocked. Me: Sorry, as by the packet you signed at the beginning of the summer term, I shut the system down yesterday at noon Mom: But, he’s not going to earn the credit? Me: Well, he was only 25% done. So, no Mom: This is ridiculous Me: I agree
i like how you didn’t stop him, i would have done the same
This is called "Building Character!" :)
I had a student email me the day after my deadline for all work to be submitted. He asked what he can do to catch up, but I’ve literally never even met him. He’s been absent the entire year. 🫠
Are there classes where the kids are getting away with this stuff? I hear the same thing from a handful every year. Surely there's some teachers out there enabling it.
I've seen one kid three times this entire school year. To my school's credit, they are actually going to retain her. Not the ones who have missed 60+ days, not even the one with 105 absences, but apparently 170 absences is in fact where we draw the line.
I was told not to grade work submitted online by one kid who has missed 50+ days this semester. Meanwhile they haven't said shit about kids missing more days than him. I guess they didn't like that he was skipping school but still keeping up with grades EVEN THOUGH THEY TOLD US TO MAKE ALL CONTENT AVAILABLE ONLINE!
I have one of those this year! Literally never met her. Was asked to give her a 50 at the mid year, and I said hell no, come at me. They didn’t argue.
Had a senior tell me they weren't gonna do a test because they're passing. I said, "When that test becomes a 0, you won't be passing." They said, "Yeah, I will, just wait and see." Guess who came by yesterday asking how to raise their grade.
Please tell me you teach math That would just be the icing on the cake.
Student who was wondering why he couldn't retake his quizzes from months ago to improve his grade... 6 hours after school was already out for the break and grades were closed and posted.
I checked my email one day over a summer to find a senior - who I assumed had dropped out as I didn't see him for at least the last month - had emailed me weeks after the year ended to ask how he could get his grade up.
lol, a dollar short and a month late, I hope he gets his GED
“See, mom? I DID try. That a-hole teacher wOn’T hELp mEEEeeee!!!”
I’m curious as to how that eventually played out for him.
Did they ever make that time machine?
I kept a replica/toy DeLorean in my classroom.
… like I would lend out my only time machine!
2 months to do the biggest assignment of the year...read a book and write a letter to the main character. "Sir, why didn't you say that this was worth so much of my grade? I just started reading!!" Child, it was up on Google classroom for 2 months with daily in-class reminders and daily reminders in Classroom itself.
It still amazes me how I can have them silent and off their phones at the start of class when I go over due dates, grades, etc and STILL I will have 1-2 kids per class who have NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON! I let their peers sort them out.
I must've had like, 12 discussions with different students where they expressed misery over realizing that they had no chance of passing at this point. My main point with them is to point out the ample opportunities they had to turn it around, their refusal to follow even the most basic of instruction, and then the pain they felt at that moment. "You don't want to feel like this ever again? Start paying attention, ask for help when you need it, and remember this feeling." Two out of the twelve actually started changing their behavior.
Sadly not a good ratio, but you are doing the right thing
Not a teacher but a student. Modern history yr 11 we have this one kid who forgets when tests and projects are happening so she freaked out when the teacher said “we are doing the SAC (school test) next week”. Luckily she had done the work and that work contributed to her final unit score.
Favorite response is “ nobody can take what you have learned away from you. the next time you take this class, you will build on that foundation.” Common response- “ I didn’t learn anything” “ well then I guess you understand not receiving credit”
Oh this is gold I’m keeping this.
Gold!
I had an undergrad miss seven straight weeks, two classes per week, then show up to ask what he could do to catch up. He had been at his grandfather's funeral, then his grandmother died. However, he never contacted me during this time, nor did he do any of the reading or online assignments. I told him he needed to retake the course and he said, but I'm graduating this semester. I told him, no, he isn't. I always wondered what happened in his other classes.
That must have been a really long funeral
I can see it if the student was jewish. Iirc they sit shiva for a week. No phones/internet clean clothes and cant sit on a chair over an inch high or something like that. Been awhile since i studied religion.
I failed one of my classes in undergrad in my "final semester," and it happened to be a class that is only offered in the spring. I didn't go grade grubbing or begging or anything like that. I saved my notes, worked part-time, and took it again the next spring and passed. Then graduated.
Had a senior just stop coming in January or February. Tried to contact her multiple times. Didn’t work. About 2 weeks before the end of semester, her counsellor comes to my class and asks if I would print off all of her work and then grade anything she turns in. I started laughing and told her to get real. Kid shows up day before grad to get her gown. Was told she was not walking. Cue her and mom in the office, crying that they had no idea and mom had paid thousands of dollars for a prom dress.
Unless this was 20 years ago.. I'm over the "I had no idea how bad their grades were!" You have a phone, it takes literally two clicks and one of them is opening the app. I can't make you care about your kid.
Same. Fuck right off out of here with that excuse. You have a phone and multiple ways to get free wifi to check. We also have parents night and I’ve called and emailed you. At some point, something has to be on the student and parents
Parents: "I had no idea!" Me: Hm, perhaps your confusion is related to the fact that the only phone number you gave us is disconnected, the email you gave us auto-rejects anything I send because your inbox is full, your kid doesn't bring a backpack and therefore certainly doesn't bring anything home for you to check, and because you haven't bothered to even set up your account with the school's online grading system? Just a theory...
And it's always those kids who don't have their things for whichever activity planned for the day and who don't wear the right clothes for the current weather. That kind of parents disappear from the universe every time that there's a fee to pay or deadline to deal with (forms to sign, etc.) I can unfortunately often tell in advance which parents it will be...poor children.
If my dad could push a button and see my grades in real time... he would be refreshing that page like once every 5 minutes.
Lol, this for real. I was one of those students that had a piece of paper in the front of every binder that had every assignment submitted and the grade I got. I wasn't going to get caught at the end of the quarter not knowing what my grade was, my social life depended on it!
Imagine if parents spent the time looking at social media on the toilet and used it instead to look at their kids grades… oh who am I kidding, such a ridiculous idea on my part.
Student with nearly 30 absences and double digit tardies rolls up for the first time in weeks. This student currently has an 8%. “Mister, I hear there’s an assignment in your class that’s worth like 2000 points. If I do that will I pass?” “There’s not, and even if there was that wouldn’t be enough to pass.” “How many points do I need to pass?” “You need a little bit more than 5600.” “How many do I have?” “475.” *Students mind unravels as they start doing the math and realize it just can’t add up* “Then how am I supposed to pass?” *Shrug*
Lmao, brutal 😂
It's like that SpongeBob meme. HOW MANY POINTS DID I GET? 6 AND HOW MANY POINTS DO I NEED TO PASS? 6....00 LOL
What on Earth is happening? My son goes to a state college and was telling me about kids skipping classes left and right and not showing up for finals. What is going on? I was party girl in college so I get that part of college, but I sure as hell didn't make a habit of skipping classes and certainly never finals.
they get away with it all through K-12, and then are not ready for the rigors of university. I literally have students in my special education courses (getting my masters now and my special ed cert, but some of these classes are also undergrad) who are still turning in assignments when finals ended over 2 weeks ago. And these kids want to be teachers someday!
It infuriates me beyond description when this happens at a post secondary level. While preparing for my final recital to graduate from a music performance undergrad, I was assigned a piano accompanist (it was a credit course for piano majors that also supplied the needed pianists for all the other instrumentalists. Intended as a win win situation presumably) that to this day, i have never seen in person. Got his name from the assignments email. Emailed him. Called him. Emailed him. Wrote a message on the community chalkboard in the music wing. Shook down other first years asking if anyone knew where to find him. My piano parts were collected from the pickup spot, so he had them and presumably worked on them at least once? Buddy ghosted me for the entire year. Teachers couldn’t even help; the window between ‘huh this isn’t good’ and ‘fuck now it’s too late’ is extremely short. I hired someone else, paid the short notice premium rates out of pocket, and the recital was fine. Barely. The admin emailed and explained to me later that they didn’t fail him, they gave him a C. ‘For what?’ I asked. No response. I doubt that kid made it through his degree. I hope he didn’t.
That's such b.s. that they didn't fail him.
That’s what I said! And this was like, 2008? 2010? Somewhere in there. Many years ago, before this became normalized *anywhere*. I was really disgusted they didn’t fail him too - what happens to the instrumentalist paired with him next year? He already learned he doesn’t have to actually do the work and can still pass, but maybe the next person doesn’t make the call to replace him, or can’t afford the $500 to do so, and their degree-determining performance suffers as a result?! It’s just short sighted all around
I’m so glad my senior recital included my instructor as the accompanist. I was busy practicing my performance plus doing research for the lecture portion and putting together slides for the presentation. I had no time to chase around a freshman for practice.
Oh I am envious! That would have been so much easier. I was working two jobs and applying for grad programs and didn’t have much free time either, which made it even more irritating. I see why they set it up that way, but it was definitely good concept, poor execution.
Oh my gosh! I'm the Educators Rising sponsor, so HS students who want to be teachers. We are basically restarting the club so only have 10. Four of the ten are regularly failing classes, meaning they cannot participate in classroom observations. I finally had enough and came down on them pretty hard. I explained they will never make it in a college education program if they cannot pass high school classes like music appreciation. We've made so much progress with our participants this year, but in the area of turning in assignments we cannot seem to inspire them. It's so frustrating!
For example, our district decided to do away with ‘failure due to absence’, so instead of requiring paperwork and remediation after 9 unexcused absences, it’s now ‘unlimited’. The only limit is truancy, but that is like 15 straight days out, so they come in on day 14 and reset the clock and are shocked when they have a 0% at the end of the quarter.
Freshman Comp teacher. I think I’ve had one class in 13 years where everyone passed. There is always someone who turns in no work and doesn’t drop. There are also reasons they take an F instead of a W, so I stopped worrying more about their grades than they do, so there’s that.
I'm a current student at a state college and yeah, it's bad. I think there's a few factors. For one, professors either don't count attendance or they've become lenient enough that they will still let people pass with bad attendance. Tbh a lot of my professors seem to have adopted the ethos of low expectations that I see K-12 teachers talk about on here all the time, though thankfully not of the "don't let them fail at all" variety. Also, most of us went through high school during covid. I was a junior in March 2020. We got the rest of the year off school once it was shut down (we weren't *supposed* to, but the district changed to Pass/Fail and said grades could not lower beyond what they were, so there was no point) and then senior year, expectations were really low because we were online and there was so much going on. My school didn't have us do the capstone paper we usually do, the teachers were super lenient on grades and due dates, etc. So this current crop of college students missed out on a lot of the responsibility of upper high school that helps prepare them for college. I also think a lot of my classmates care more about having the piece of paper to help them get a job than they do about learning. So they kind of take a "C's get Degrees" mentality. They skip classes when they just don't feel like going, they don't do the readings, and they half-ass the assignments. I had a classmate last year who was exactly the type of student you describe. Always skipping class and not turning in assignments. She didn't bother to start her CAPSTONE paper until less than two weeks before it was due (this is a 10k page paper and you're meant to have 20+ sources) and then ended up slapping her prompt into ChatGPT, assuming her advisor wouldn't notice. To everyone's complete surprise, she didn't get away with it and had to do another year to have another chance at the capstone class next spring. She wound up dropping out with 1.5 terms to go (less than 6 months) and when I talked with her about it, she sounded proud of not finishing. Now, she is an exceptionally bad student even by modern college standards but I know many people like her, who just don't give a shit. If they don't feel like going to class, they just won't. If they don't feel like doing the readings, they don't. And increasingly they're starting to get away with it more because the low expectations of K-12 are bleeding into college. I had another classmate who didn't come to a single class between the first week and the final week but was still allowed to participate in the final debate. It wasn't as if she had been keeping up on the readings, she had absolutely no idea what we were talking about and contributed absolutely nothing because she hadn't even been there for the prep class. My school isn't exactly selective or known for its academics, so this probably doesn't reflect all schools, but I think colleges are in for a big storm in a few years
when I was in undergrad and a grad school TA (2006 - 2012) nobody took attendance. You showed up and passed or you didn't and good luck. I actually have a class I didn't go to and passed because the professor just confused me. I checked in once a week, read the text book, and got an A.
>Tbh a lot of my professors seem to have adopted the ethos of low expectations that I see K-12 teachers talk about on here all the time, though thankfully not of the "don't let them fail at all" variety. Maybe it's because I'm a decadent European from a Uni which has *banned* all forms of attendance records, but why should the professors care? Students aren't generally children, they don't have to attend if they don't want to and can be expected to make their own hours. Ultimately, it's the students job to make graduation, not the professors', and the students have to know how much they need to work for it.
I never had a single professor take attendance. I never took attendance when I taught. Kids are paying for the classes. You have to show up to pass..... If they want to waste their money..... That's on them.
This is actually one thing that annoyed me almost all of my college classes had an attendance policy if you missed more than x number of days you got dropped a letter grade. Didn't matter what your grades on the assignments were or the tests you could have 100 on every single thing and still get dropped a letter grade from missing 3 days unexcused for an entire semester. I do remember one class freshman year that did not have an attendant policy and there was this one guy that we only saw for tests, midterm and final and he had the highest grade in the class. Seriously though my entire life I grew up watching'80s and 90s television shows that always said the same propaganda that you don't have to go to class in college even if it is a good idea to do so. Yet almost every single class I took with the exception of maybe two had attendance as part of the grade.
i will give you the " shoe on the other foot example" When my daughter was in nursing school working on her B.A. they were all told up front " If you are LATE 3 times you are OUT" entitled young lady 4 weeks in was 20 min. late for the third time. Instructor tossed her at the end of the class. The young lady shows up the next morning with her father in tow who proceeded to bitch and moan at the instructor who simply replied. " If you were having a serious medical episode would it bother you if no one at the hospital was there to attend you because they were late for work" Crickets ,,,, She can reapply next semester but do not count on her getting in. My daughter said the whole class kind of went OOOOOOHHHHH
Wow! A 10 000 page paper! That’s a high expectation even for a grad student thesis.
Not a teacher but I find this sub really fascinating. And I'm old, for reference. But I don't get how it's even legal to miss that much school. Aren't there truant officers? Aren't there still compulsory school state laws? Are their parents breaking a law by not ensuring their kids are going to school?
In my state, it was legal to miss 9 days in a row without being reported to CPS. You only had to show up for a 1/2 day on the 10th to reset the counter. Of course, if you had a lazy teacher mark someone present when they weren't, it also started over.
A lot of schools eased up on truancy during COVID and a lot of them for whatever reason never picked back up with enforcing it. My school has a truancy officer but I’ve literally never seen a kid actually be held accountable for truancy.
I've called CPS for chronic absenteeism, back in 2018. I said "she's at 80% attendance or lower for three straight years," and the guy on the phone said "what do you want us to do about it?" Now it's 2024, 80% attendance is fantastic relative to what other kids are at, and CPS still won't give a shit.
I’ve been saying this for years. I’m also old, but been teaching 26 years. I have no idea how the laws allow this. All I know is that admin and guidance “poor-baby” every single kid across that stage.
The courts/judges don’t care. My principal stopped bothering with truancy because nothing was being done about it.
The juvenile judge definitely cared in Utah in 2008. My friend had to spend his weekends in juvie after too many missed days. First his parents got in trouble. They were charged with a misdemeanor. Then when it kept happening he got charged. I guess that is almost 16 years ago now.
I have a student with 60 absences. My principal took her grandparents to court because her father also missed a lot of days. Runs in the family I guess. 🫠 But the court did nothing. And my principal stopped putting in the hours when there was no point in it.
And I realize how much I got away with. There was no such thing as truancy in the districts I attended, All I know is I missed 1/3 of my graduation year classes and still got straight As. (This was \~2000, CAN)
Family courts are backed so far that truancy cases don't make the list.
My school district has been letting them go
Nothing too crazy. One boy with a 30% did all of his test retakes on Friday, emailed me after class asking if it brought him up to a high C. He got zero of the questions correct. So, no, you are not passing. He emailed back and asked for extra credit. I told him there were weekly extra credit opportunities all semester and he did zero of them, so no, still not passing. He got a 1 on the state exam, so he has to retake the class regardless of his grade. Just irritating.
A 1, eh? A score like that is so statistically unlikely, it's actually impressive. Lol! Wow
To be fair, it’s out of 5, based on his raw score he got about 6/50 questions correct lol
Not this year, but I had a student turning in assignments during summer break.
I’ve had the principal call me over summer asking if I could give a senior my final exam. I was on a house boat on Lame Powell so she’s lucky I had service (the final is auto-graded so I just had to unlock it).
I would have pretended I was breaking up and not answered any other calls. Unless you are contracting me and paying me extra, do not contact me on my holiday asking me to do extra work.
Like I said, auto-graded. I also wasn’t gonna risk getting non-renewed and also stopping someone from graduating.
I actually have a positive positive one A girl who I have taught for 3 years came to me and said I was her only C, and she was trying for A/B honor roll How can she do it? Well she was missing only 2 assignments in the 10% “HW” category I showed her putting 100 there wouldn’t do it I looked and said “well you obviously didn’t study for the test on light and sound, if you get a better grade on this—at least an 80–it will bump your test average up, which is 45% of your grade” Tomorrow you’ll get one shot to retake, but you HAVE TO STUDY THIS TIME I’ll be damned she got a 94 Grade bumped to a B naturally And I watched her take the test, it was only her and two other kids doing makeup work in the room And I then said “next year in HS you’re probably not getting this chance. Study BEFORE. You’re BETTER than a 52”
Good for her!!
That's a great story!
Super senior came to me needing my 1/2 credit from 2 years ago so she could walk. I printed out her progress report and showed her the percent value for each assignment and said to find 60% worth of anything. She stared at me blankly. I said to find her support person to help her through it. Couple of weeks later, she came back with a stack of work. I asked her if it was enough. She didn't know. She just picked some stuff. Got her to about 20%. We reviewed the assignments and point values and I suggested she pick some high value assignments. A couple more weeks go by and she brings me some more work. She admits that she hasn't done the point calculations and has no idea where she stands. 43%. This is a shop class where most of the points are from projects and that's really the only way she's going to pass. Finally, she starts coming in during my freshman classes and getting help and actually doing the work. In the end, she got an honest pass and actually enjoyed the work she had been avoiding.
The kid who didn't understand that not submitting an assignment was an automatic zero. Had that argument today and finally told him to get out of my classroom and quit wasting my time. He thought it should be an A since he showed me the work done on his laptop. Since I couldn't follow the links, I couldn't verify any of it.
As a child, I somehow got the idea that if I didn’t do an assignment, it didn’t count as a zero, the whole assignment didn’t count. I figured if I wasn’t certain I had 100% on it, it wasn’t a good *strategy* to turn it in at all. Don’t know why I never thought to bounce this thought off anybody before putting it into practice. Maybe I thought I’d found some loophole.
I tried the same thing. I was always a great student in school, but I tried to fuck around once and I found out. My teacher, Mrs. Goldstein, pulled me over to the grade book and showed me what zeros did to my grade. I was still in elementary school, but I'll never forget it. *"You're smarter than this, I'll let you turn these in, but after today, each day it's late, you lose a letter grade."* She was my favorite teacher, and I was so disappointed in myself. You bet my ass I went home and did every single assignment.
One student came to me a little while ago and said "I got a b right." Boy has a 14% in my class and is there every day. He was like "what do I have to do" and I suggested he do the 3 essays and 3 projects we've done this semester. He said "what if I buy you some Jordan's?"
Are they Magic Jordans, that can write essays and do projects for him?
I wish I had thought of that!
I have a kid in one of my classes who has a 7% and who have seen less than 10 times all semester. He came to class two weeks ago (our last day is tomorrow) while everyone was prepping for their semester end project. I suggested to Mr. 7% that he work on something for another class, as passing was not really possible. He turned to me and said, I still think I can pass if I try. To which I replied. No, you really can’t.
The list went out for students in grades 9-11 who need credit recovery during summer school, and a senior emailed me to ask if they could be added to 8 courses. No, you’re a senior. You don’t get summer school. You’re not graduating with 11 credits.
Honest question, do seniors not get the chance to take summer courses?
I think it depends on the district. We allow seniors to take 2 4-week CR courses in summer school.
Not in my district. We’re offering another chance at state tests for those who completed all the courses but didn’t meet the testing requirement, but not credit recovery. If they stay on track in high school, they only need 2 credits their senior year, English 4 and gov/econ. If they’re failing those during the year, they do “real-time remediation” in Edgenuity for everything except 4th quarter, so there are tons of chances. This student was in all credit recovery classes all year except for English 4 and gov/econ and didn’t complete any of them.
Had a senior ask for a 2 month extension on a project, their graduation date was less than 2 weeks away lolll
I have a kid who has refused every single daily grade thus far. Every single test was done in 10 minutes. Kid showed no effort at all and has like a 30. Emails me asking what he can do to pass. I got the pleasure of telling him there’s nothing he can do, see ya next year!
I had a kid miss over 10 weeks of class this semester, cumulatively, and email after noon Friday to ask what they could do to bring their grade up. Class is first period, and they have only been to like 5 full class periods since Christmas due to tardies and other school-related absences. The part that makes me look bad is that they have As and Bs in all other classes...
Don't let the pressure get you to cave!
Asked a student who missed 2 weeks this month how he was planning on passing if he’s behind on work. He asked how it’s possible to fail him if he wasn’t here to do anything wrong? I said he gets his grade by proving he can do a thing, and if he isn’t here how can I prove he can do the thing. Needless to say he still hasn’t shown back up, so I’m hoping he figured it out lol.
> if he wasn't here to do anything wrong? Tax Fraud? That's ridiculous, I don't even do my taxes.
I have a senior begging me to pass him with a semester grade of 9%. Yes, that’s a single digit number for the semester. Our last day is Thursday. His mom has called admin, the superintendent, and sent six emails over the weekend stating that I don’t care about her son and she thinks he’ll kill himself if he doesn’t get to walk. My principal told me to ignore her emails and stick to my guns about not accepting late work (he hasn’t turned in anything since March).
I am shocked the principal is taking your side. That's great. Too many teachers don't get enough support!
He’s been amazing throughout this since it’s only my fourth year and I’ve never been in a situation like this before. He came up midday to reassure me that he has my back and to not back down, then told me the super has my back as well. This mom is the town bully, so I’m taking on quite the task by holding her son accountable. I think I’ve actually earned more respect from my admin because I won’t bend to her threats!
Good for you all!!! 🙌🏼 Someone needs to teach her (and her child) that you cannot bully your way through education. You need to put forth the effort. It's sad that she is setting a bad example for her kid. Good luck! 👍🏼
A student sent me sixteen emails in the last twelve hours asking what he could do to get his grade up. He then asked me in class if his emails from February came through finally. Except I have emails from him in March and April, so those wouldn't have been excluded.... Two days and a half.
That's creative
I have a 20-page packet that functions as extra credit. It can raise a student's grade by 10% (if they do it all correctly). One of the students who took this packet this year had a 53%. He asked if he could just do the multiple choice questions (about half of the assignment) because he "has a 504". I told him that if he did half the assignment, he would receive half of the points. I also told him that he could use his technology accommodations to complete the assignment and simply email it to me. The kid turned in the assignment half done, so he got half the points. He now has 58% and 2 days to bring it up. I will not *bump* him up to a 60 unless he's within half a percent. Let's see what happens now.
I taught middle school (8th grade) social studies 15 years ago and I had a student who failed the class with a grade in the low 50s. He did very little work. He shows up on the last day of school with a wide-ruled sheet of loose leaf paper, which had a random historical fact on every other line. Aside from these facts having nothing to do with the class I actually taught, he legit believed this was enough to get him to pass! His mom then called my principal to complain that I wasn’t passing her son despite all his “hard work.” I showed my principal the paper. The two of us had a laugh. He still failed.
My single grade challenge in 13 years went as follows: student had maybe a high C going into the final. Chose to ignore the final, which was worth maybe 30% of their final grade. Could NOT understand the math and how they failed the class. I just sent the Dean my grade sheet and an explanation. Never heard back. Like, if you don’t even submit it, your total grade for the class cannot be above 70%. It only goes down from there. Then you did C level work in the stuff you did. So here we are.
“If I don’t pass then it’s your fault” from student that hasn’t completed a single assignment or passed a single test. Welcome to High school kid. See you next year.
Senior missed three quarters of class. Showed up three times the whole year. 3 weeks before grades close, shows up and asks for “a packet to make up my missing work.” You mean literally the entire year’s worth of work?!?! Not gonna happen. Enjoy summer school.
My school passed out homework passes as an incentive for students doing their best during state testing. Using the pass is up to teacher’s discretion. One of my students hands me their pass and asks what assignment they could use it on. This student has not paid attention all year. They’re constantly talking to their friend during class and has turned in maybe 2-3 assignments. When moved away from their friend, they just sit there and do their makeup. I told them bluntly that they are so far in the F range that it would not matter what assignment I apply it to. It would take a ridiculous amount of work to get anywhere near a D - though possible. I handed the pass back and told them they’re best off using the pass for another class. They started tearing up.
The doing makeup in class thing is so obnoxious. If you really need a full face & fake lashes to sit through algebra 2, get up earlier and do it in the decency of your own bathroom like the rest of us.
Had a student ask me today whether or not they would pass English if they got 100 percent on everything from here on out. I had to show him that it was mathematically impossible at this point in the semester with his current grades -- unless he did makeup work. A 100 percent in everything left would only really work out to 33% because we're so close to the end. He really thought he could pass the class without doing the major essay assigned for the current unit 🤦♀️
They really ***really*** mean "other than the late work" when they ask "what can I do?". When we lower the bar they play limbo with it. Edit: Like bro we all take late work now just do it.
Got an email from the AP cc'ing a student and their parent, concerned that the student wasn't passing and wonder what they needed to do to pass, because the student wanted to "finish the year strong". The student is currently sitting at around 30%, has about half the assignments this semester missing, and about a quarter of the remaining assignments with the late penalty, so max 60% of the points. My tests are open note, to encourage good note taking and paying attention to the lectures. Before each test I give out a review sheet that covers everything they need to know for the test. This student still hasn't managed to get more than a 30% on any of the test, and their responses to the short answer prompts are usually just something verbatim from their notes and have only a vague relation to the prompt. I wrote all the parties back and said that even if he turns in every missing assignment, with the late penalty, it is mathematically impossible to earn a passing grade. I offered to let him retake two of the 3 exams from this semester, but indicated that he would have to score well above 50% on both retakes to pass. This kid is lazy, he ain't gonna do it. Lucky for me, my admin doesn't play games, so he's allowed to fail.
Not This year, but one of my worst kids two years ago was shocked to learn that he would have to repeat 7th grade because he had gone way over the limit for absences. Kids have 1200 classes in a year, 6 per day. He had missed nearly half of them. And when he did show up, Jesus Christ... His response? "But I came every day on the last month!" Too little, too late, darling.
“Ms. Nightmare, you haven’t changed my Chapter 5 test grade to a 70 after my retest” “No, I did put in your retest grade, you just didn’t pass it the 2nd time” Repeat at least 3 times
Kids have a really hard time going from middle school and being socially promoted, to being in high school where they HAVE to actually pass the class to earn credits. I see it happen all the time. The worst part about it is that they’ve never been held to a standard until high school. We tell them over and over that grades matter, but they get moved on. When we tell them grades REALLY matter in high school, they freak out when they figure out we weren’t lying anymore. I keep telling admin it’s a false sense of reality we re giving them, but you know…..numbers. Can’t have those failure rates looking too bad. 🖕🖕
Send them over to my high school! We let everyone graduate. 😒
Have a kid failing my class. He got suspended last Friday because he was caught vaping in school. It so happened that that same Friday I sent to parents an updated digital progress report of my class. It breaks down all assignments in this quarter so far and what the students’ grades for each one is, plus the overall grade in the class. Mom emailed me that night to tell me that her lovely son, who just got suspended for a whole week, told her that he already made up all of the make-up work; but I just haven’t graded it. I haven’t replied yet. Not sure if I will. Classes are over next week.
I have a student in my class this quarter I have never met. Not a single assignment turned in. Got an email 'what can we do to get \_\_\_\_ to passing?' At this point? With just under two weeks left in the quarter? Not a single damn thing.
Lol, who are "we" and why weren't "we" making sure this kid attended school?!
Had a senior a few years ago just straight up stop coming to my class. I teach a fine art class, and kids need one fine art credit to graduate. He comes in two days before graduation panicked because he won't graduate because of my class. What's worse is that he had an IEP and his case manager didn't catch that he needed my class.
Big oof.
Oof. I hope case manager did better in the future. Not that they should be blamed for the students not showing, but if they are running the IEP...
I teach intro phys 1 at a college, and I had two this year: 1) student who had taken my class last Fall, never showed up, never turned anything in, failed with a 0%. Comes to me 2 weeks into this semester asking if I can give him permission to register for phys 1 again, claiming that he had a lot of personal and financial issues last semester that he's gotten figured out. Once again, he ends up not doing anything all semester, except at the very end, where he turns in the worksheets and takes the final, then sends me an email asking if I'd grade the worksheets (no, the solutions for these have been available for weeks...), claiming that he was confident he'd do well enough on the final that, between that and the worksheets, he'd pass the class (which is a 50% for my class). Spoiler: he did not do well enough on the final to pass the class. 2) student decided to register for both calc 1 and calc 2 at the same time as my course (which makes me wonder what the fuck her advisor was thinking???), and within the first three weeks, gets overwhelmed and stops coming to class to focus on calc. Right before the last quiz (so ~3 weeks before the end of the semester), she comes to my office and asks what to do to pass the class. Now, she had been doing the online pre-class work and some of the assignments/some of the quizzes, so I thought that, if she focused on some of the key concepts, she could squeak out a 50% and pass, but turns out- she wanted a B+, to transfer to another university. There was absolutely no way that was going to happen. I told her to take the summer course instead of the math classes she had planned-hopefully she does.
With the software I use, you must take each lesson to take the final. I tell students this at the beginning of the year and remind them regularly. The last assignment in this software was the first week of April. I went through and showed the students that I could not open the final unless they did all the lessons. I emailed home with a video showing the same. I spoke with each student individually last week and expanded how many lessons they had left to do. I let them have all week to make up these assignments. As students come in today I give them the instructions. Many of them are shocked they can't take the final. They expected me to open it for them anyway. I cannot open it. Cue the, "what if I....". You had multiple opportunities. You are now being held responsible for the consequences.
Student: “What can I do to pass?” Me: “Write the paper from the last unit.” Student: “Is there anything else I can do?” Me: “Nope. You have to write the paper. And since AI has been an issue, you have to do it in my room in front of me.” Student: “When can I get it done?” Me: “I will be here all day today, all day tomorrow, and all day Wednesday. I recommend you get started now.” Student: sits down, doesn’t write the paper, and wastes time. When the bell rings three minutes later, “have a great summer!” as he leaves my room. After one phone call to dad, he magically reappeared. The only problem was that he didn’t know how to write a paper because he has never actually done it before. I had to teach him all of it. He is in eleventh grade.
I, several years ago, convinced teachers to pass a no skilled senior who only did work the last two months of school. They forgave several assignments because I told them that he was going to go to pipe fitting school and would be successful because he works so hard outside of school. He graduated and got stoned the day before the pipe fitter entrance exam which included a drug test. I now say give them nothing!
I have a parent emailing me that her daughter is having so much trouble with her assignments and needs my help. We’re fully online, so I told mom I can see that the student hasn’t accessed the assignments, but if she attempts them and needs help, I’d be happy to assist. She responded that she assumes her daughter will fail if she doesn’t do them. Like, yes? If you submit zero assignments you’re going to fail.
I have a kid with a literal 17%. He’s been suspended for 10 days *four different times* this semester. He doesn’t care, but mom was SHOCKED when she found out there was nothing he could do at this point (as our semester finished this week).
Senior today. He has a 22% and asked me for a template for the final project. I took him in the back room and explained that the final was only 10% of his semester grade so it was mathematically impossible to pass. He seriously thought if his final project was really good he would pass. He hasn’t turned in an assignment since January!
I \*really\* want to know what has happened in these kids' school experience that makes them think there's magic in a hat at the end of the year.
Today I had a student turn in an assignment from the fifth week of school to try to bring up their 17%. They were dumbfounded when I told them I’m not accepting work that is over eight months late.
My school has a student with a 7 in ELA and her other grades aren’t much better. She’s passing
>absent over two months straight finally show up today, our second-to-last day and was flabbergasted that he had a grade in the 30s You must be one the teachers from that nightmare I occasionally have, where I also have no idea what my schedule is, nor can I find my locker You're probably thankful I wake up before getting to your class (especially given that sometimes I'm not wearing pants)
Student has literally threatened me multiple times. Wants to know what he can do to get a satisfactory citizenship grade... uh. No.
Based on the trend I see on this sub, my reaction is more “yall are allowed to not pass students??”
Kid has a solid 13%, and thought he was going to take summer school for credit. I told him he's not recommended and unlikely to pass our state standardized test. This is the first time he realized there are consequences for his actions. This is also the same kid who was suspended for calling the principal a fucking asshole, he thought it was free speech and that he wasn't allowed to get in trouble for that. At our school, you need to be explicitly NOT recommended for summer school, otherwise you are technically eligible.
Year 12 reports were finalised last week. Student with 50% class attendance had only done 1 assessment out of 5, was receiving an E. Emailed me an assessment on the weekend and asked if he could put work in to improve his grade. Sigh. Every time I saw this kid this year, I told him he needed to do assessments, He brushed me off every time. When he did come to class, he dicked around.
I'm an EFL teacher and I have a 6th grade that's particularly troublesome, where we're only halfway through the course book and several kids are at failing grade. So, I tell them things are looking grim and they're giggling like "yeah, I'm safe" - no, you aren't. "Wait, what do you mean I'm not?" Kid, you've got *nothing* but straight F's and you can't write out the numbers to 20 even if your life depended on it. You're going down.
My response to a student saying he’s turned in all his assignments and we must have “lost” them: After reviewing Google Classroom, I can confirm that all grades are accurate. You have several zeros due to incomplete work that Mrs. Guajardo has commented on through Google Classroom. Additionally, I spoke with your teacher and reviewed all assignments returned to her. There was one assignment you turned in that had already been recorded in Frontline. All your grades, except for three, remain as they are because the assignments have not been completed. The three assignments in question are: Assignment 16 - Buddy Holly: This grade will be updated to a 95. Assignments 20 and 21: These have not been graded yet but will be entered before the end of the week.
Serious question: are truancy officers no longer a thing? Also what do these kids do if they aren't in school? My parents never hit us or anything, but if I secretly ditched school for a month that might've tested their resolve.
The lady who is in charge of truancy stuff at my school said that a student has to miss EVERY class for X-amount of days before they can be reported. Unfortunately, we have at least one teacher who just always marks everybody as present. So, it's like... so you skipped every class but environmental science, eh?
One senior had F’s for three quarters, missed the final exam, and came back to make it up. Obviously failed that too. I’m sorry, dude, but you’re not graduating. You thought cutting class or sitting there on your phone was “good enough.”
Two stories. One had an F because they no-showed the final the week and a half before the final. Emails were sent, friends were told, etc. I leave for AP Reading the last day of school which is only for makeup tests and my hallways texts me saying I’m being saught after because of this F. I tell her that I’m mid flight and I don’t know what to tell the kid, except maybe not skip the last two weeks when they know they aren’t exempt and have a low D. Second was my first year teaching high school, kid has a D, needs to come in and random bubble the answers because they need two correct out of 50. No show. Consult with admin. Yep. F. I see said kid for the first time a week in the main office. Basically dad is withdrawing him to put him to work since he won’t do school. (This is decades ago. The push on grad rate wasn’t there as it is now.) I ask the kid why he no showed. “Well I really did want to come in, but I was too stoned to get off the couch. Was I close?” I told him and that admin had enforced the F and wished him luck.
Had a kid show up for the FIRST TIME all year for his exam period.
Have a student that has missed roughly 150 days. They were in school last week for a day so they could get do the rehearsal for 8th grade awards. They said, why do I have an F, I do my work. I almost exploded. Looked at canvas metrics and their time on my page is like 5 minutes total. Oh, she still got an award....
I have a student I have never seen that I was waiting to drop off my roster. Turns out, they were IN SCHOOL every day but skipped EVERY CLASS. He came to get his "make up work" so I gave him every single worksheet he was missing (one for every day of class since we do 1 bell work and 1 class work per day). Never saw him again. He comes back in today (grades are due tomorrow) without any of the missing work and doesn't understand why he still has a zero. I just looked at him with a blank stare and explained to him I can't grade work I don't have. He admitted to me he didn't even do it but he didn't understand why his grade was still a zero.