Grade Help

I was officially done with the eighth grade English class. They had taken their finals, their grades had been finalized and input into the system that generates their report cards, and their promotion activities were set for the following Tuesday. It was the weekend, and I only had to focus on the math class I was now covering for the last week of school. 

On Saturday, I got an email from a student: 

hi are you guys going to input the final into aeries?

(Aeries is the name of the gradebook software.) My reply: 

 It has been. Your grade for the semester has been finalized. 

Shortly thereafter, he asked another question: 

but how come i still have the same grade at a 78.4% i thought it would push me to a B at least 

This was a valid question. I checked his grade to see what might have gone wrong. I noticed that he had missed a few assignments, and he had only gotten a C on the project that was due the last week I was there. (The co-teacher graded it, and she was grading the projects "easy", so he had to have been missing major elements.) 

So, I replied that missing assignments and low scores had pushed his grade down. His grade had probably fallen to a D with the missed work. (He did well on the final.) I reminded him that all his classwork matters. (I hope he takes this lesson with him into high school.) 

Then, the following week, he sent me another email: 

hi ms a i was emailing you to ask if there is anything i can do to maybe push my grade up a bit?

I can't tell you how often the co-teacher and I reminded the students to do their missing assignments. We kept reminding them that missing assignments impacted their grades. We gave them three weeks' notice of a final due date for all late/missing work. And that date got pushed back when the system crashed.

I thought all of that, but I said none of it. 

Something had happened between his previous emails and that last one. Ms. R, his regular teacher, returned from her maternity leave. Even if I wanted to do something, it was no longer my place. And so, I referred him back to Ms. R. 

Knowing Ms. R's personality, I have a pretty good idea of how that interaction went. 

Late Late Work

I had finished covering Ms. R's class the week prior. (I'm only allowed to cover a class for up to 30 days.) But Ms. R wasn't back yet. Because of the current sub situation (there's a shortage), I volunteered to remain in the class digitally to input the grades for the eighth graders' finals. (It was a multiple choice final, so it graded itself. All I needed to do was transfer the grades into the gradebook.) 

Okay, so really I remained digitally in the class because I hadn't finished the grading from my time in the class. We had that crash. And the deadline for their late work got pushed back because of it. Plus, they had a project due at the end of the school day on my last day covering the class. So, I needed a couple extra days to get all that done and input into the gradebook. 

It only took me until Tuesday to get it all done. 

So, on Friday, all I had to do was transfer their final exam grades into the gradebook. Basically, it was two clicks. (The scores just import into the gradebook. It's very cool.) 

But before I got to transferring their final exam grades, I got an email from Bentley:

I apologize for turning this in late. I've had a very bad cold and it made it hard to do much work. I understand this may seem like an excuse but please consider grading this. Thank you for your time.

Considering how much that project counted for, and considering how Bentley did manage to complete six late assignments, I figured why not? (She did lose points for turning it in late.) What can I tell you? I'm a soft touch. 

I transferred the kiddos' final exam grades. I finalized their grades for the semester. And that's when I got one more email from a kiddo: 

Hello Mrs.a, for my message to the world project it says that it's missing on this account and I turned it in on the other account before my account got restored. I was wondering if you can fix it or possibly regrade it. Thank you

Considering the mess with the Google Classroom crash, this is likely true. In fact, when I pulled up his project, it looked very familiar. So, of course I graded it. 

When I went to adjust his final semester grade, it went from a D to a C. 

So, I don't feel too bad about allowing these assignments. But don't tell anybody. If word gets out, more of them might try for the exception.

Procrastinator

It was my last day in the eighth grade English class. (The way the subbing credential works, I can only cover a class for thirty days. Last Friday was day thirty.) I was hoping to get my grading done during the "office hour". 

The school established an "office hour" in the afternoons so the students could get extra help on assignments and such. For the most part, the students don't utilize it. But, of course, on the day I really need no one to attend, several students needed my help. 

Bentley had been doing well until the last couple weeks. She hadn't been in class for most of the previous week, and she hadn't turned anything in for a couple more than that. So, I was surprised when she popped up. 

Bentley explained that she had been sick for about a month. (She didn't say she'd had the dread plague, so I assume it was just a cold.) And she said she'd gotten lazy. She wanted to know if she could turn in her missing assignments as now she was concerned for her grade.

Sigh.

The due date for late work had been pushed to that Friday due to the system crash, so she could still get work done. And I do applaud her for wanting to get something accomplished. 

She's not the only one the procrastination bug bit hard this spring. 

They're down to the wire now. As you read this, they're taking their finals. The year is over.

Paranoia Pays Off

On Friday, the whole Google Classroom system crashed for the school. By Monday, they were able to sort of restore the students' email accounts so they could access the Google Meets. But it was a temporary thing. 

We were warned not to use Google Classroom until the system was restored. When they reassociated the students' email accounts with their classwork accounts, anything the students did in the between times (from the time the system crashed until it was restored) would be wiped out.

But how do you get assignments to students at home during a pandemic? Email? (That's very, very time consuming, not to mention going through all the emails to grade it. Eeek.) 

Now, there are a couple other systems in place, but I do not have access to them. They figured the sub wouldn't need them. (I did try to get an account early on in the school year when I was on a different assignment, but it never happened, and by the time I'd follow up, I was done covering that class.) 

There was nothing else to do. I assigned them work on Google Classroom, but with the caveat that they'd need to back up their work to a different system somehow, as once their accounts were restored, that work would be lost. 

But eighth graders. I knew this was going to go awry for some of them.

I got paranoid. 

Daily, I went and graded all work that was turned in. I immediately recorded it in the gradebook. Up until now I had been waiting to grade things until after they were due so I could grade them all at once. But I just knew...

Thursday I got an email from a student. His account had been restored. And the assignment he had completed had gone poof. (He had thought his account was safe, that it had been restored the day prior.) 

I checked. Yup, I'd graded it. It had a score in the gradebook. 

Once we got word that the accounts were mostly restored, I went back through the week's assignments to make sure they showed as completed. I found three other students' work that had "incomplete" when I had a score for them.

I'm so glad I did that grading when I did. 

The Worst Timing

Last Friday I related the crash of Google Classroom. I wrote, "Hopefully, they'll get things fixed by Monday." 

via GIPHY

I really should have known.

Actually, come to think of it, it's rather amazing that we haven't had a catastrophic failure like this all year. Things have been working pretty well up until now. But, of course, if the system is going to crash, the system has to crash at the worst possible time... 

There are three weeks left of school. It's time for things like final projects to be due. It's time for all make up work to be due. And the eighth graders have their finals a week before the seventh graders so they can participate in end-of-the-year activities. (Well, in a normal year...) 

By Monday, things hadn't been restored. All of the students' work from the entire semester was gone. 

Now, this wasn't too terrible as the gradebook software was unaffected. And I had been really good about grading things and getting them recorded immediately. So, while they lost access to the work they did, they still had credit for it.

But, this did present a problem for the current work. When all of your work is online, how do you run a class when the online component is not functioning? And, what do you do when you're just covering for another teacher who left all of the work for the classes with the assumption that the online stuff would be working? 

It was a bit of a scramble.

And it's almost all sorted as of this writing. Almost. 

I am learning so much. I have no idea if the kiddos are.

Worst Case Scenario

Friday, fourth period. The principal came over the loudspeaker to inform us that some students had been deleted from their Google Classroom accounts, that the school was aware of the problem, that the issue was school-based, and that they were working on it. 

I had no issues in fourth period.

Then sixth period arrived... 

I have four in-person students. Three had lost their Google Classroom accounts.

Uh oh... 

The class has a total of 31 students. I may have one absence, generally. Most of the time, they're all present. This day, I had 17 in the Google Meet. 

Throughout the period, students "left the meet", or at least that's the message I got from my end. But I got messages in the chat telling me that the student who just left had been kicked out of the meet and couldn't log back in. (They know each other, so I assume they texted each other to let me know.) 

Considering the situation and how they usually behave, I figured that everyone who "left" the meet was booted from it and then found they no longer had access to their Google account. 

Ah, the joys of technology. 

The boys in class? Well, three of them couldn't access their accounts, so they obviously couldn't do the assignment. At which point, they switched from "advanced student mode" (read: well-behaved) to "eighth grade boy mode" (read: not so well-behaved). The boy who could access his computer used the time to play Tetris.

Sigh.

Hopefully they'll get things fixed by Monday. It'll be really awkward if I have no work for them to do. (All the work is online. I could scramble for the students in class, but what do I do with the kiddos still schooling from home?)

The Seating Chart

Students are creatures of habit. They like their routines. Once something has been established, like requiring them to wipe down their desks at the end of the period, they just continue to do that thing. They don't like it when we change things up on them.

In the co-taught classes, I am in charge of taking roll. (I'm in charge of roll in the classes where it's just me, too, of course.) After a couple weeks of not remembering any of the names of the in-person students, I decided to take advantage of their tendencies. I decided to make seating charts. 

We have not assigned seats. Now, you'd think that me making a seating chart and then not requiring the kiddos to sit in the same seats would mean that my seating charts are useless. They are not. 

Second period, Tuesday. Four students arrived. All sat down in the front row. I went down the line, and all had sat according to the seating chart. That they were unaware of. 

After a month of in-person learning, they have chosen their seats, and they are sticking to them. 

It's not 100%. In third period, a girl and a boy have done battle over the back far corner seat. It goes to the student who arrives first. (The one day that they started an argument over it, I forbid either to sit there. Since then, they've accepted the first one to get there gets it.) 

Save for a couple other adjustments daily, the kiddos pretty much stay in the same seats. And with my chart, I have started to learn their names. Or, at least, I'm way better at "guessing" who is who. 

Seating charts are how I learn students' names. It's the way my brain works. So, might as well play to my strengths, right?

Sub Day

Monday. It was the day after Mother's Day. Ms. R, the co-teacher, had decided to take a personal day off. (She went to visit her grown children, and she didn't want to rush back.) 

Ms. R was going to need a sub. 

I have subbed many times for co-teachers when the other teacher is there. (It's a very easy day for a sub. Usually.) This time, I was the "regular" teacher. 

And... Had this been any other year, I might have gotten an actual sub. But this year is weird. And one of the weirdnesses is a lack of subs. It seems we're all on long-term assignments, so day-to-day subs are few and far between. 

Instead, full-time on-campus teachers period subbed. (It was fine. I knew what we were doing, and they just assisted with the online students.) 

It was kind of a disappointment. I had hoped to get a chance to compare notes with another sub. We don't often get a chance to hang out for a day and talk. Sigh. Well, maybe next year... 

Mask Up

Are you all still wearing masks? 

Masks are required of the in-person students (as well as the teachers and all staff). We have the masks, the partitions, air circulating, social distancing, and constant cleaning. Hopefully all will be well continuing on.

However, a certain problem has cropped up that I know you are familiar with, going by how often the complaint pops up on social media.

The kiddos don't keep the mask over their nose!

In public, I grumble. I see these people, and I wonder if they realize that the whole point is to cover the nose (as well as the mouth). But it's not my place to say anything, so I don't.

However, in school, it is actually my job to make sure the kiddos are complying with the masking up.

Yup, I get to tell kiddos to pull their masks up over their noses. And they do it. 

Ah, the power.

It kind of makes up for when I leave campus and no longer have the authority to do so. Sigh.

Rattled

This hybrid school thing... So many moving parts. 

The bell rang, so I dismissed fourth period. Then I had six minutes to get ready for sixth. (We're on a block schedule, so periods 1-3-5 one day and periods 2-4-6 the next.) 

I let the in-person boys into class as I logged into the meet for the at-home students. I first joined using the main computer. Then I joined using the "receiving" computer.

Okay, so this might get a bit complicated to explain, but I'm going to try anyway. If we play a video to the at-home students and attempt to listen to it on that same computer in class, there's a distortion that the kiddos at home hear. The fix for this is to present the video on one computer while listening to it on another. That is, I need to have one computer open to the meet and receiving the presentation just like the kiddos at home. 

I mean, I don't have to do this. I could just mute my computer. But then I don't know if they're hearing me. Besides, I kind of have to follow along so I know when to stop the video. And with kiddos in class, it's easier to have one speaker going so they can all follow along. I plug the receiving computer into the in-class projection system for the kiddos in class.

(I mean, they could just join the meet and watch it that way. And sometimes they do. But, what's the use of being in person if they're just getting their instruction via a Google Meet?) 

Confused? I'm just getting started...

Once I was in the meet with both computers, I "presented" my main computer screen to the receiving computer. Only, the receiving computer wasn't seeing what my presenting computer was presenting. 

I had something similar happen the previous week, so I logged out and logged back in. Still, nothing.

At this point, the kiddos started logging in. Only, I wasn't seeing them on my presenting computer...

And that's when I found my error. I logged my receiving computer into period 6's meet. I logged my presenting computer into period 4's. Oops.

Too many moving parts. Or open tabs. Or some metaphor like that. 

By the time this is all over, I'm going to be an expert at Google Meets. And then I won't need to be anymore.

Falling Partitions

Because pandemic, all the classrooms have been outfitted with plexiglass partitions for the students. They look like this: 

As you can see, they're not attached to the desks. Because of this, the inevitable happens. Several times a day. 

(The inevitable being that kiddo knocks said partition down.) 

And, you know what? This makes me laugh every single time.

It's terrible of me. The kiddos don't intend to knock the thing over. Some of it is clumsy. (They are adolescents, after all.) Some of it is careless. And because we have them wipe down their desks after every class (yup, there are safety protocols in place), someone is going to touch something wrong, and down it goes. 

I'm not trying to laugh at them. Some of them look positively mortified when it happens. Although, as it happens every day, I think we're getting to the point where they're less upset when it happens to them.

I hope.

Because, the laugh response continues to happen. I'm tamping it down more and more. But a snort still seems to come out when I hear the tell-tale sound of falling partition. 

Timber!

Where I Found My Earring

This has been the weirdest year. Not only did I get a chance to attend Back to School Night, I also got to attend Open House. Because I'm doing the long-term assignment. 

I just timed these long-term assignments wrong right, I guess. 

Even though we have students on campus now, Open House was fully virtual. So each department got together to create a presentation. As the sub in the mix, I went along with what the three other eighth grade English teachers wanted to do. (It's not like I knew what to showcase, anyway.) 

The night of, we were all in the same meet, but we were all in different classrooms. I got a call from the teacher who took charge. As we talked, I felt something strange with my earring. When we finished our conversation, I felt for my earring, and the back had fallen off. (With masks, I've been wearing stud earrings exclusively.)

It had to have fallen somewhere... 

The co-teacher was in the same room with me. She looked from one side of the desk, me from the other. I used my flashlight. I got down on my hands and knees. Nothing. 

I put what was left of my earrings in my wallet, and we went on with the Open House presentation. (We had, like, 13 parents show up. Sigh.) 

After, I went straight home. It had been a long day. (There was time for me to go home between the end of the school day and the start of Open House, but it seemed like a waste of time, so I had remained on campus. That made it a 12-hour day.) 

And that's when I texted the co-teacher with one of my stranger texts...

She had said it probably ended up in my bra. The earring back had somehow slipped into a pretty secure location on the inside of my bra, between the lace and the structural support. It was safe there until I found it.

Whew. 

I would have been very upset at losing that. I wear those earrings all the time.

The Giggles

A teacher at one of the high schools I sub at wrote a book about parents and teens and effective communication. She's looking for backers on Indiegogo. You can read (and watch her talk about the book on video) here.

Spring in eighth grade English means it's time for them to read The Diary of Anne Frank. Because eighth grade, we read the play version. 

Reading plays in class can be fun. Parts are assigned. If you have the right mix of kiddos, they can get into it. Some do a voice. Some get engaged in their roles.

Alas, with the hybrid thing, things are different.

Getting kiddos at home to turn on their microphones and respond is hard. Those that do often have background noise: dogs barking, babies crying, siblings making noise, etc. But since we have kiddos in class, we have willing volunteers to read. 

Okay, maybe "willing" is stretching it a bit. It's more like I told them they were reading, and they didn't contradict me. And with few kiddos in class, everyone in class got a speaking part, so it wasn't like any one of them were getting singled out. They all had to, ahem, suffer the same fate. 

Sixth period. I had four students in class.

Scene 1, Act 2 has eight speaking parts. I divvied up the parts so each boy got two roles. And away we went.

Only... Adam had the giggles. 

When he wasn't speaking (he was playing Anne and Miep), it was fine. The kiddos at home didn't hear him as he kept his microphone muted. But when it was his turn to read...

He had to try to gather himself together. Then he'd get a sentence or two out only to burst into laughter again. Luckily, he didn't have too much to do in the scene.

Why was he laughing? I have no idea. He blamed another boy's picture in the meet. (With cameras off, a picture holds their place on screen. Very few students use their actual pictures, so it was some odd image.) But I doubt that was what caused the giggle fit. 

Somehow, we made it through the scene.

With the at home and in class groups thing being awkward, I took some time to search, and I found an audio version of the play. 

The one day a week we're all distance (kind of a long story as to how the whole thing works), I teased the recording. I asked the class how they enjoyed reading in class. As expected, the in-class kiddos weren't so enthused about having to read. (The at-home kiddos rather enjoyed it, though.)

When I told them I had found a recording, the in-class students cheered. (Yay! in the chat counts as cheering.) But not Adam. Adam said he rather enjoyed reading in class. 

But the rest of sixth period were happy. It seems that they didn't get a whole lot out of our reading of that scene as the kiddos in the classroom did.

Not surprising, really. I could probably say the same about most things school-related.

Zero Game

I've written this post before. Many times, actually. And I'm sure I'll write it many times after this. Because, kids.

Because hybrid classes (some students online, some in person), and because when Ms. R created the plans for her maternity leave while we were still all in distance learning, the assignments are all online. (Although, eighth grade English was largely in Google Classroom before the pandemic. The distance learning thing just pushed the rest of it online.) 

So, every day the in-person kiddos come into the classroom and log in on their computers.

Thursday. First period.

They were to watch two videos on women in World War 2. (One on Rosie the Riveter and one on the WASPs.) Then they had questions to answer.

The co-teacher was doing her usual circulating around the room when she happened upon Diego. With a game going on his computer. 

Deep sigh.

And he pulled the "I have no idea how that got on my screen" ploy. 

What makes this particularly stupid is that we had only seven students in the classroom. It's not like we're not going to notice.

When they're at home, we can't police them. We hope the parents do that, but in reality, their parents are probably as busy if not more so. But when the kiddos are in the room with us? 

I have a pretty good idea why Diego's parents sent him back to in-person.

You Again

The sixth period on this long term eighth grade English class has two in-person students. (Well, two in-person students in each cohort, but the whole cohort thing is another post.) Brice and Adam.

On Tuesday, Brice and Adam showed up together. As they likely did the week before. And they'll likely continue to do so. 

They explained. The two of them have the exact same schedule. Well, except for their math class. They each have a different math class. 

But the rest of their school day, they are together. 

Two eighth grade boys who have the whole day together? That is way too much time to plan mischief. 

(At least they're in the advanced class. That means they're less likely to be difficult in class.) 

The thing they were laughing about on this day, however, had to do with them meeting up with each other that morning at the discipline office. The discipline office is where the kiddos check out their computers. And both of them managed to break theirs that Tuesday. 

Brice's water bottle leaked, and he had doused his computer. He flooded his entire backpack. 

Adam... Well, Adam managed to smash his. How? Well, Brice told the story. Adam didn't offer details. So, I suspect Adam was at least partially at fault. 

Those two can't escape each other, it seems. I imagine this will be a great story for them in ten or fifteen years.

Xion's Grade

I don't use the students' actual names on the blog, but today's X-name isn't a cheat for A to Z's X-day. This boy's name actually does start with an X. So, now you know what his real name is. Unless it's that other fairly common X-name...

It's week two of my long term assignment in the eighth grade English class. I have a co-teacher for the first half of the day (read: she teaches those classes). 

A fair number of students have done little to no work this semester (and last semester, I expect), and the co-teacher had had enough of that. She warned the kiddos that she'd be calling home.

Ms. R was assigned an instructional aide, so she gave the IA a list of students who were failing, and she had her call the parents. Mostly, the IA left messages. However, a few parents did pick up the phone.

It was her second day of calling when Xion's stepfather picked up. And he was not happy to hear the boy was failing English...

Ms. R and the stepfather had an interesting conversation that was blog-worthy. As I was verifying details for this post, I found a mistake... 

Xion has a fairly common last name. It's so common, he isn't the only student to have that last name in that class. 

It turns out Xion has a B in the class. The girl above him on the roster with the same last name (no relation) has a 30%. She's missing more than a month's worth of assignments. Xion? He's turned everything in.

The IA called Xion's parents about the girl's grade.

As soon as I spotted that mistake, I let Ms. R know. And she got back in contact with Xion's stepfather. Because it turns out that the stepfather had it right; Xion's grade wasn't an issue.

Hopefully Xion didn't get into trouble for the mix-up. Clearly the parents are on top of Xion's schoolwork, as the stepfather knew his grade wasn't an F. (The parents have access to the online gradebook, so they can check the kiddos' grades as easily as the kiddos can.)

Taking a Trip

On this hybrid thing, while we have a few kiddos in class, we have way more still at home. So, on this long-term assignment, I'm getting emails from the students explaining their absences: 

I hope you are doing well. I just wanted to inform you on why I won’t be able to attend the Google Meets for tomorrow. My aunt is making my family go on a trip and we’ll be leaving the house early in the morning. However, I will be able to join the Google Meets on Friday because we’ll be home by then. I hope that’s fine with you and I will make sure to complete any assignment assigned that day. Anyways, thank you and see you on Friday!

So... I have questions. None of which I did ask because it's not really my business. But... 

"My aunt is making my family go on a trip." 

I mean, I would love to have an aunt make me go on a trip. Although, this might not be a fun trip. It could be any number of things. 

Like I said, questions. But since he did complete that day's assignment, it's not really my business. He took care of his responsibilities. (I know, weird to hear an eighth grader did that, but this was from the advanced class, so they're a bit more responsible.) So, this will remain a mystery. Unless I think to ask him about it later.

I doubt I'll ask him about it later. 

Scare

First period, Thursday. I got a call from one of the assistant principals (AP). 

"The student that we pulled out... Don't touch his desk."

We hadn't been in first period more than five minutes (the co-teacher had barely started class) when security arrived. He asked if a student was in class. He was. Security removed the student. 

(In the before times, this was common, so I didn't think much of it. I figured he hadn't completed his self check or something.) 

The co-teacher went back to teaching the class. 

The phone call was quite a bit later. 

It wasn't until after class that the AP explained as she had us vacate the room. (We were moved to an empty classroom for the next period while they deep cleaned ours.) 

The student may have had Covid the week prior. Or, he had been in contact with someone who had. (The story changed over the course of the day.) He had been told to stay home this week, but he will be cleared to be on campus next. We'll see. 

And... I can't say that I was in "close contact" with him. He was in the room for less than fifteen minutes. He was farther than six feet from me the whole time. We were both wearing masks. And we were both behind plexiglass partitions. 

And I'm two weeks past my second vaccine dose. 

Still, it's a bit disconcerting. 

Ah, the joys of schooling in the dread plague era.

Remembered, Eventually

The week after spring break I started a new long term assignment: eighth grade English. And since the district just transitioned to hybrid learning, that meant that I was back on campus.

Because it's a long-term, I checked out keys to the classroom and I checked out a school computer. That means I don't need to go into the office to see the secretary I check in with. But she does need to know I'm on campus. 

She told me to call her daily to let her know I'm present. 

Day 2 of the assignment. Tuesday. As I got on campus, calling the secretary was on my mind. "I need to call the office immediately." 

But, I have a co-teacher who gets to campus way earlier than me. She was already in the room when I arrived. We got to talking, and...

About halfway through second period I remembered I hadn't called the secretary. But I got distracted before I could call, and...

It was halfway through SIXTH period when I finally called. You know, the end of the day. 

Ahem. 

The rest of the week, I called immediately upon arrival. Funny how messing up Tuesday made me pay way more attention after.