Sixty Percent

I'm doing a long term subbing thing, so therefore grades must be due. 

It was the middle of class when the email popped up. "Oh, your progress reports are due next week," I announced. 

I know the drill. I had one assignment that I had not graded as of yet, but I had time to get that done and the grades submitted. (This is the first progress report of the year, so while I am only obligated to send them out for students in danger of failing, I figured I'd send them for everyone.) 

One small hitch... 

When I set up the gradebook, I followed what the other art teacher was doing. She had set up "projects" as 60% of their grade. The one assignment I needed to grade? Their one and only project thus far. 

Mostly they turned it in. I had maybe three students not do great on it, but the rest earned a 70% or higher. The majority got over 80%. 

But... No name papers. And some did not turn it in at all. Sigh. 

No project? Their grades fell off a cliff. They went from 100% (or high 90s) to 40% and below. Ouch. 

But there was time. I announced to every class that if their grade fell off a cliff, they were missing the project. And many then turned theirs in. 

Some though... Some students are going to get an awful surprise when they get that failing grade. I warned them... 

Things stabilize once there are more grades in the gradebook. A second project will make the one thus far count for less of their total. 

Late Friday (during the dreaded seventh period) I got an email from a parent. Her daughter swore she turned in her project, but her grade was now an F. 

I had to wait until after school to hunt that down. (Seventh period needed my full attention.) But sure enough, that class period had four no name papers. Yeah, I'm sure the girl's was one of those. 

So now I've pretty much hit all the things I have to do when on a long term. The new teacher can start. Any day now... 

Make Work

Last week we started our annual state testing. (This week we'll finish it up.) I explained the schedule on Wednesday. As I mentioned yesterday, what this meant for me was that I had two hours of "free" time to get some things accomplished. Which meant some things got done that I might not have gotten to otherwise...

Before spring break, the eleventh grade classes did a whole lot of anticipatory stuff for reading The Great Gatsby. We talked about the 1920s. They read about the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. And they had a couple videos to watch. 

I had them take notes. And then I gave them points for taking the notes (mostly because I expected that they'd ignore the material and spend the time on their phones if I didn't). Or, rather, I gave them points for the first day of notes, but for the rest of them I wasn't going to bother. Because it was practically spring break. 

Thursday. Jocelyn had to go home early. She came to class briefly to find out what the assignment was going to be. She got the title of the video so she could watch it and turn in the notes so she wouldn't miss any assignments. 

I would have told her not to bother, but she did this so fast. Mostly, what I was concerned about was that the video, a biography on F. Scott Fitzgerald, briefly discussed The Great Gatsby including how it ended. This part I skipped over while showing it in class (as we didn't want spoilers before reading the book), but how did I explain this to Jocelyn? 

When I wrote last week's blog post mentioning the video, I looked it up, searching for it rather than clicking on the link Ms. A left. And, surprisingly, the first video to pop up on YouTube is without spoiler. Someone edited it out! Meaning, Jocelyn most likely saw the version without the spoiler. Big Whew!

Then, on Friday, during eighth period, I informed them they'd need to take notes...

Evan: "I'm not going to take notes. You're not going to grade them." 

Yeah, so now I have to grade them. 

So, when all this time opened up this week, the first thing I did was to grade all the notes from before spring break. 

Because, seriously? I'm pretty easy going most of the time, but when someone challenges me like that? Don't tell me I'm not going to do something. I will so do that thing. 

Grading Concern

Wednesday. Fourth period. 

Tyson strode in the room, upset. "You told me not to worry. You told me I wouldn't get an F." 

Tyson is new to the class. He only started it a couple weeks ago. He transferred from another school. (I presume he just moved.) 

When he arrived, we were in the middle of a unit. Since this is a special ed math class, our unit consists of graphing one kind of problem. As we were going to be doing more days on this, I figured that Tyson would catch on and catch up. I wasn't going to make him responsible for the worksheets he missed before he joined the class, but he could start where we were at. 

The worksheets that Tyson had done had many errors. Ms. S (the instructional aide who's been doing all the grading) informed me that the kiddos were missing many problems on their assignments. So, on this day, as luck would have it, the plan was to give the students a day to redo the problems they missed to improve their scores. 

I attempted to calm Tyson down. He was in a panic about having an F in the class. I explained that once he made the corrections on his assignments, his grade would rise. Tyson was stuck on the F and how that would effect his ability to play football. 

He had lots of questions. Ms. S sat with him a while to help him. By the end of the period, he seemed way more confident. 

And, as he finished his corrections, Ms. S graded and input his new scores. His grade went from an F to a C-. And it's only going to go up from there. 

It's hard to come in mid semester. But I knew that Tyson's grade wasn't going to be an issue. 

And, we kind of want him on the football team. That kiddo is huge. 

Missed Deadline

I started a new long term assignment on Wednesday. There are a few things that I have to do right off the bat with these assignments. Get keys to the classroom. Figure out what I need to teach. Check out a teacher computer. And get access to the gradebook.

This school has a whole new administrative team, so I did not know who was in charge of adding me to the online gradebook. I asked around. Found out. Sent him an email. 

I had to do something in the main office, so I dropped by the assistant principal's office. Mr. R was not there. Since clearly he was busy and perhaps not on campus, I figured I'd circle back the next day. 

(I did get keys and a teacher computer. I was scrambling for lessons, but that's pretty normal for a new gig.) 

For reasons I do not know, the previous sub had not gotten access to the gradebook. Ms. S, the instructional assistant (who's been working at that school for many years), had been keeping up with the grading and had a paper gradebook for the kiddos. So, while there were grades, the kiddos could not see them. 

On Thursday, while in the main office on other errands, I managed to find Mr. R in his office. I asked about gradebook access. He had gotten my email and was going to take care of it. Since I was there, he did it right then. (And I had other questions for him.) 

And, because I knew, I asked the question. When were progress report grades due? 

4 PM. That day. (We were having this conversation at about 2 PM.) 

Yeah. Not going to happen. 

(First I had to set up the gradebooks. Then input the assignments. Then the grades. While I know how to do this, I don't know how to do it well. There's a lot of searching for things and going back to make sure I didn't leave anything out. Grade ranges have to be entered. And that's all before entering their progress report grades into the system.) 

Seriously, the previous sub should have taken care of it. They open the report cards four to five days before they're due, so he could have totally finished that on his way out. But again, he never got the gradebook access, so...

While I felt bad, I knew this one was beyond my control. I let Mr. R know those grades weren't happening. And he understood. 

(How did I know grades were due? Because they always seem to be due when I start a long term. I wrote about it five times in the last three years: one, two, three, four, and five.)

On Friday Ms. S input all of the outstanding grades. It took her all day. She's a rockstar. (Seriously, getting up to speed on this assignment is so much easier with Ms. S there to handle a lot of the administrative tasks that I'm usually scrambling to get under control.) 

One Last Thing

A sub credential only allows me to cover one class for up to thirty days. This was extended to sixty days the last couple of years, because *gestures to everything*. But it appears that we are sufficiently back to normal, and the number of days I can cover one class will remain at thirty.

Last Friday was day thirty of the school year. 

We all kept an eye on this, and the teacher next door (Ms. W) who's been supplying me with help and lesson plans kept an eye out for a sub to replace me. 

Ms. W realized that Mr. H might be a good next sub. (I wrote about him a few months ago.) And so, those that do these things got him all lined up. 

I asked for and got two days of transition. So, Mr. H started on Thursday. We had two days in the class together so I could pass off everything to him. 

The one thing I wanted to get finished before I left was grading the students' lab safety posters.

In about week three, the students got an assignment about lab safety. There were rules to read and activities to complete. The last activity was a poster they were to create about one of the lab safety rules. 

This particular assignment kept getting pushed back. The kiddos would get ten minutes to work on it, and then class would be over. I'd plan to give them more time for it, but the other lessons would take too much time. After three tries to find time in class to do it, I gave it up. I figured they just wouldn't get it done, and we could skip it.

But then it was test day, and there was about a half hour of class time to fill. Lab safety poster.

The whole thing was a mess, so leaving that mess of grading to Mr. H? Nope. Didn't want to do it. 

But, time just evaporated. I had a hair appointment Tuesday afternoon. Then Wednesday I got pulled into something else. And it was Thursday. The moments I might have stolen to do some grading were the moments I used to go over things Mr. H needed (and when Mr. H asked me questions about what he was unclear on). 

(On Thursday Mr. H taught about half of the lesson. On Friday he did all of it. He's good. The class is in good hands.) 

So, it was Friday. Class time was busy. (Sure, Mr. H taught the lesson, but I assisted. And they were doing a rotating stations thing, so having two adults was a good thing.) Finally, at the end of the day, I said I had to get those posters graded. 

Mr. H offered to do some of it. I observed that there were other assignments the kiddos had turned in. (Sure, I would have liked to have gotten those graded, too, but they were technically on his watch, so I felt less guilty leaving them to him.) 

In the end, I got five of the periods graded. Mr. H graded the last one. And I was able to leave the class having mostly gotten the grading from my time done.

And now I am once again free to join the subbing pool. Back to the day-to-day. And I don't feel even a little worried about the classes I left as I know they're in capable hands.

Urgency

These middle schoolers...

There's this boy who asked to go by K3 in class (so since that's anonymous enough, I'll use it here). He has his moments of being a reasonable student and then he has other moments of play. So, typical seventh grader. 

I've had issues with getting the kiddos to turn in their work. I tell them when it's due. I call for it. But many don't have it done even though they had time in class to complete it (or I let them finish what they didn't finish in class for homework). 

But, the general rule is they can turn in late work, and I'm okay with this as I'd rather they turn it in and get credit rather than taking the F. (I want them to succeed.) 

So, last week K3 gave me a stack of four or five assignments that he was missing. Okay, fine. But then he follows it up with:

"You need to grade these quickly. My dad won't let me play sports until I get my grades up."

Um...

Wisely, I did not reply. He handed them to me at the end of class, as he was leaving. And I chose not to give him a piece of my mind.

Because, really? Him not turning his work in a timely manner makes it my responsibility to input those grades immediately? 

*taps sign*

I knew I'd need this image someday.

Over the weekend, I took home some grading. I got it input into the gradebook and everything. (It felt great to be caught up Monday morning.) First thing Monday morning I found an email from Nadia. 

Nadia stated that she was missing an assignment in the gradebook that she had turned in. 

I don't normally lose student work. (I don't even lose pens or socks. It's freakish, really.) But, I took a quick look just to make sure I hadn't overlooked it. Nope. But, I did have one paper missing a name.

I emailed this back to Nadia. The next time she was in class, she checked the paper. Yup, it was hers. She put her name on it and gave it back to me.

I'm lucky in that I have a last period conference period. When my last class leaves, I have a full period of time to close out the day and get prepped for the next one. I have made it my habit to go through the stack of late turned in work right after I've noted any things I need to note from the day (keeping track of who was tardy and who had a cell phone, that sort of thing). 

I had just gotten through the stack of late work, and I was checking email before moving on to the next thing that needed my attention. Nadia had sent me an email. I noted the time of the email. 3:01 PM. I looked at the clock. It was 3:04 PM. 

Nadia reminded me that she had resubmitted her assignment and it needed to be entered into the gradebook. 

Ahem.

I was sorely tempted to go into the gradebook and erase the score. But I am an adult. I resisted.

I went back to the email as I was going to add it to this post. Reading it now, it doesn't sound as bad as it sounded when I read it the first time. The first time, I was a bit put out. Because, I had just entered her grade into the gradebook. Right when she sent the email. 

I mean, I get where the kiddos are coming from. And I'm keeping up with the grading. Really. I am. 

But when they insist I take care of their stuff immediately? That they got to me late?

*shakes head* Middle schoolers...

The Stack

A little over a week ago, I got an email from a parent. She was concerned that her student had an F in the class, and could her student make that up? 

At that point I had two grades posted. The student had been absent when the second assignment was due, and she hadn't gotten it to me. Since then, she had been one of the good ones, so I was sure I had all her work. It was just ungraded. 

I told her mother this in the email--that I was behind on grading and that her student's work was fine. And I set about catching up on what I had to grade. 

Slowly I got through the current stack. Well, most of it. 

I don't recall which class, maybe fourth period, when a student asked when I'd have their lab safety packets graded. 

Deep sigh. 

I pulled out the stack to demonstrate: 

Holding it up for the class to see, I said, "It might take me a while." 

I'm dreading it. 

I'm writing this post on Saturday. I'm scheduling it for the following Friday. So, almost a week. Will I have graded it by then? 

Likely not. 

I'm okay with that, though. 

And the student whose mother asked about her F. She no longer has an F. She got the assignment to me that she was missing, and now she has an A. (Before, with the other work she'd completed, she had a B.) 

I'm getting there. Slowly.

Following Directions

Last week I mentioned the emails from students are starting. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I told the students to let me know if there are any mistakes in their grades. I don't generally make those kinds of mistakes, but it can happen, and I'd rather they let me know than going to their counselor and having them send me an email questioning their grade... 

So, when I got an email from a student immediately after inputting three assignments, I wasn't offended. The email: 

I am writing because of my grade book. I finished the Lab Safety Packet, and the Scientist Card Sort. 

I think you did both the Lab Safety Packet and the Scientist Card Sort wrong, but if i'm misunderstanding, please let me know. 

Thank you.

The student did not get full credit on one of those assignments, and the other had not been graded yet, so it was missing from the gradebook for everyone (and did not impact their grade). 

I wrote back explaining why they'd be missing points for the assignments. And when I passed back their graded work the next day, sure enough the student lost the points just as I explained in the email. (I didn't have the work in front of me when I responded to the email, but I deducted points for some very specific things.) 

And the student? Wouldn't look at me during class that day. I think they were a little mad at me. I'm not sure why, entirely, as I deducted points for things like not fully completing the assignment as instructed. (They were required to write 5-6 sentences on one. This student did not.) 

Ah well. Seventh grader. While I don't want them to not bring their grade concerns to me, I would rather they make sure their work is fully complete before assuming that I made a mistake in the grading. 

And... I totally would have let them resubmit the assignment with corrections for full points. But, I would only tell them that if they asked. They did not.

(If I have to regrade every assignment after they've turned it in and gotten it back, I don't even want to contemplate how much work that would be.)

A Test Makeup

It was week three in Mr. J's classes, and I'm starting to get my feet under me. That means that certain things I may not have noticed initially (while I'm trying to get a handle on the bigger things) are now catching my attention.

Jordan is in my second period class, but I hadn't seen much of her. In fact, I hadn't really seen her at all. 

I first noticed Jordan's absence when I was getting the quarter grades taken care of. She had pretty much taken the month of February off. And she was doing the same for March. Her grade was fine, but that was only because no one had input the grades.

Once I finished getting the grading caught up, Jordan's grade dropped to an F. 

I checked her attendance. It appeared that she was attending school every other day. As the school is on a block schedule, that meant that while her first, third, fifth, and seventh period teachers were seeing her regularly, her fourth, sixth, and eighth period teachers, as well as me, weren't seeing her at all. 

Thursday was an odd day. During passing period, Jordan showed up at my door. (I was at the door greeting students as they entered. The administrators encourage this of the teachers.) I knew who she was because the seating charts have photos. 

Jordan said that her grade had dropped because she was missing a test. (She was missing two tests and five or six assignments, but I didn't point that out.) After expressing displeasure that I hadn't just automatically cancelled the grade for her, she wondered if she could make up the test. I told her of course she could. Then she was on her way to her fifth period class. 

(There is a way to make an assignment not count for a student. I did this for a student who was out for a while after a suicide attempt. I will do this for various students who already completed an online course on how to job interview which I'm assigning to a couple classes. I will not do this for a student who ditched class for a month and now sees that her grade dropped.)

Did Jordan show up to take the test later that day? No, she did not.

Jordan did show up to class the next day. So, I offered her the opportunity to take the test right then. 

She wasn't that quiet, although I think she thought she was, when she said something along the lines of, "I don't want to do this now." I suppose I could have pressed the issue, but I gave her the out of taking it later in the day. She said she'd be there.

And then a meeting I needed to attend ran long, so I got back to the room late. So, of course Jordan wasn't there. Had she been there at the time we'd agreed? 

Well, I double checked her schedule. She does, in fact, have an eighth period when she said she didn't, so I kind of doubt that she was there. 

She can still make up the test and all the work she's missing. I'm accepting all late work. 

But will she? Will she get that work made up? 

We shall see. 

(So many of them did little while Mr. D was covering the classes, and somehow they thought the work didn't count. I had a couple weeks of students scrambling to get assignments in once their grades plummeted after I got those assignments input in the gradebook. Some still have not done anything.)

Guilt

It was the second week of my new long-term assignment, and I spent much of it getting their grades caught up. For much of the month of February, nothing had been graded and the non-co-taught classes had been kind of left up to their own devices.

When I talked to Mr. J about his upcoming absence, he had planned to be out starting in mid March. So, when another teacher asked me to cover her classes for the last two weeks of February, I figured I'd be free and agreed. 

But Mr. J's wife had to take her maternity leave early and Mr. J needed to be home with her. So, the secretary got another sub to take the class until I could start. I don't know Mr. D very well, but he is well-liked at the school, and he's done quite a few longer assignments as of late.

As it wasn't technically long enough to be long-term, Mr. D didn't get grading access, nor did he directly instruct the classes that weren't co-taught. 

There's one sophomore math class and three computer science classes that aren't co-taught. (There are two sophomore math classes that are co-taught, and Ms. L was instructing them.) 

The computer science classes were going to be tricky anyway, as there aren't any subs who are well-versed (or even partially knowledgeable) in computer science. They were always going to be kinda on their own. Their lessons have videos, and one can follow what they're supposed to be doing. But mostly they were supposed to be keeping up with the lessons on the website.

But the math class was also kinda left to their own devices. They had computerized lessons. The co-teacher made them videos. But sophomores. 15-year-olds are not known for being self starters.

So, I've been sorting out things like tests that didn't happen and grades that didn't get input. And lessons that the kiddos didn't actually get. 

I've been hit with a whole lot of guilt.

Because, if I had just dropped out of that two-week assignment, I could have started this class back in February, and we wouldn't be in the midst of a mess.

The math class had a test over the unit that they were supposed to be keeping up with. It went badly. The computer science classes missed a test at the end of February over their unit. (Once I realized this, I gave them a week's heads-up that the test would happen, so they had time to look over what they were supposed to have learned.) That test also went not great. (Some did well. Some, not so much.) 

Their quarter grades were due at the end of last week. And many of them took a nose-dive. 

Part of me is exasperated as clearly they weren't doing anything while Mr. D was there. (And he gave them the assignments, and they had the time in class to do them.) But part of me also understands that some things got missed because of the situation.

This would not have been the situation if I had started in February.

Deep sigh.

All I can do is move on from here. And kind of enjoy watching the kiddos scramble to turn in assignments late that they should have done in February. When they were assigned. When they had time in class.

(The baby's been born, and both mother and son are doing well. I don't know much more than that as I haven't been bothering Mr. J with school stuff while he's on leave.)

Handled?

Back in October, I did a co-teaching day in a math class. I covered for the special ed teacher. The general ed teacher, Mr. J, talked of leave he'd be taking in March for the birth of his second child. I agreed to cover his class. 

But, in late January his wife was hospitalized with complications, so his leave had to start early. Alas, I had promised another teacher I'd cover her classes at the end of February. 

They found another sub to cover the classes until I could start. I started last Monday.

They gave us a transition day. 

The co-teacher was around, but of the block schedule days, this was the day she did not co-teach. When she popped in, I had one major question for her:

"When are grades due?"

Because, they have to be. I'm starting a long term assignment, so grades are due. Last year I got slapped in the face with this. Now it's on my radar.

Ms. L, the co-teacher, wasn't sure, but we figured out that the end of the quarter was the next week (read: this week). So, I had some time to get situated before I'd have to submit grades.

As Ms. L discussed what we'd be doing in class, she mentioned some testing that was due. We'd have to do it next week (again read: this week). And I laughed. Because I got hit with that one in the vacant English class I started this school year in. 

At least I have all the things I need for that one. (Getting my log in credentials reinstated for this test ended up being an issue, so I have periodically checked to make sure I still have access since then.) 

I am not going to do anything stupid and say something about being all set. Because I'm not. Something else is going to appear out of the blue that I'll have to scramble to deal with.

But, for the moment, my begin-the-long-term scramble seems to be handled. For now. 

Mr. J is scheduled to return in early May. This should be an interesting two months.

Final Grades

A couple weeks ago, Mr. B left a message for his students in the Google Classroom. The last day to turn in late work was the Friday before finals week. And so, every day I reminded them of this deadline.

Then Ms. P (the instructional aide) called out sick, which meant I was doing the grading. I told the students this was good for them as I tend to grade easy, and I wasn't sure how many points to deduct for late work (so I wasn't going to deduct any).  

(I didn't expect them to take advantage of this. So, when I wasn't getting loads of late work being turned in, I wasn't surprised.)

It was the last week before finals. And I reminded them that any late work they turned in was only going to benefit them. They turned in their last assignment for the semester, and still many had empty spots where points for assignments should be. I pointed out that any late work was only going to boost their grades.

Still, nothing.

And then I really looked at their grades. A few of them had dropped from a C to an F. 

The problem: I hadn't given the C students progress reports. 

There is a rule. A teacher cannot fail a student at the semester if they did not send out a progress report with the note "in danger of failing". 

I did the progress reports. I sent progress reports out for every D and F student. The students who had Cs, however, I figured would still have Cs at the semester.

But, sub. I don't know why, but students slack off with long term subs. There is a grade dip. I just didn't think the grades would dip that much.

There were five students who now had Fs who had not gotten progress reports. Sigh.

Two of them were just missing the last assignment due to being absent. They turned in the assignment, and their grades popped back up. 

Two of them were up to date on assignments, but those assignments had not been completed thoroughly. I gently suggested to one that if she completed some questions that she hadn't done, she could pull up her grade. 

She did a sloppy job, earned eight points, but that was enough to take her to just above 60%. A D. Whew.

Another boy turned in a missing packet, and that was enough to bounce him into D territory. Whew. 

There's still one, though. I will have to tell Mr. B I messed up and didn't give him a progress report. I imagine he'll end up getting a D at the semester as well.

I did what I could. But I can't do the work for them. And next time (and there will be a next time), I may just have to give progress reports to students with Cs. Because, seriously. They do let things slide when there's a sub. 

Grades Due, Naturally

The start of this new long-term assignment has gone pretty smoothly. The classes are pretty mellow. There's an instructional aide to clue me in on what I need to do. The lesson plans are complete.

My first day, the secretary in charge of subs was out sick, but I knew who checks out keys so I got that done. I even managed to talk to one of the assistant principals about getting access to the gradebooks. (It was the wrong assistant principal--the other one had that access. But Dr. T told Mr. C, and it got done.) 

I started on a Friday. On Monday, I knew there was one thing I needed to find out.

When were progress reports due? 

Because, I knew.

It had been about a month since the end of the quarter. And considering how for my last three long-terms grades had been due almost immediately after me beginning, I knew it had to be very, very soon.

(I even mentioned this here on the blog: the vacant English class, the English class last spring, and success seminar.) 

I called the secretary in charge of subs, but she was again out sick. Who could I ask? I figured I might as well ask one of the assistant principals.

He got back to me right away. I asked on a Monday. Grades were due Wednesday. Naturally.

Before Mr. B went out, he left current grades. So, it wasn't a big deal.

At least this time I was on top of things.

And I know the next grades due are the semester grades, which won't be due until after Mr. B returns. So, I should be safe. *knocks on wood*

Nailbiter

Wednesday was my last day in the English 9 classes. 

When I began the classes (oh so long ago--3 1/2 weeks prior) I had requested and received access to the class' gradebooks. (I had to set them up. Link them. And get all the grading that had been done input.) 

The one hiccup was in the transition, the seating charts that Mr. P had made went poof. I had to recreate them. (Usually I keep a copy on paper, but I hadn't had a chance to print out a copy with all the other things I was trying to keep up with.) Yes, there is a way to do seating charts in the attendance software, and it makes taking roll go so much more quickly.

Knowing this, I was a bit paranoid about the gradebooks. Would they go poof when Mr. V got full access? 

There was a way to make a PDF copy. So, Monday evening I did. 

But Tuesday and Wednesday... 

The progress reports had gone out. The students were suddenly very interested in what assignments they were missing. 

(The previous week, they had a good hour of class time--some had longer--to go through their grades, see what was missing, and talk to me about it. Some did. Most spent the time playing games on their Chromebooks.)

So, I was getting late work. Some students hadn't started the class with everybody, so they had assignments that they weren't responsible for. (That's an easy enough fix, but they had to tell me as I only knew who was in the class when I started. I didn't know if they started the first day or later. If later, some of Mr. P's assignments didn't count.) 

By Wednesday I had made multiple adjustments to the gradebook.

Mr. V got his district account set up Wednesday. 

Because of computer access, I couldn't back up the gradebook again from school. I planned to do it from home. I got home, only to find that the classes had been removed from my account. 

And now I was worried. Would I be able to recall every change I had made since Monday? Or did the gradebooks make the transition to Mr. V intact? 

Luckily, I had his cell phone number, so I texted him.

It turned out, they had. And I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Fully removed from the class, I no longer had to think about it at all. Yay!

(Although, Mr. V doesn't have the right access to take the Google Classrooms for the classes. Yet. That's in process, and I can hold onto them until I can pass them over. He just can't give them digital assignments until then.

And, on Friday, I learned that one lone student hadn't been transferred out of "my" class with the group. I only learned this when the attendance clerk chided me for not submitting attendance. On a day I did not work.)

Graded

One of the things I get to do while doing a "long term" assignment is the grading. (I'm only in this class for three weeks, but Ms. A has been out since January. I'm actually doing lessons and everything.) 

The eleventh graders are reading The Great Gatsby. As the English classes have been teaching this novel yearly for a while, they have certain set assignments that go with it. One is an assignment where the students describe the characters using quotes from the novel. Another is where the students explain the significance of certain passages.

These are tricky assignments, but at this point in their schooling, they should be able to find quotes and argue their perspectives. (Since I've covered every year of English, I see how these skills are built up from the seventh grade. Each school year they add on another layer of complexity.)

I introduced the assignments. I explained. I went through examples. 

When they said one class period wasn't long enough to finish, I gave them another. (Ms. A had built in two class periods for the assignment into her lesson plans, but we were behind so I was trying to play catch up.) 

Because the assignments are online, I was able to peek at what they'd been doing, and I read through and offered suggestions as to how they could make their arguments stronger. (It didn't take as long as it might have as half the students hadn't even begun.)

Then the assignments were due.

During the conference period, I graded. So many of the assignments were not done well. Some hadn't identified the correct speaker for the quotes. And their analyses were weak. Sigh.

I "returned" their assignments and then entered them into the online gradebook.

I stepped out of the room to hit the restroom. Upon my return, a student was knocking on the classroom door. (It was still my conference period.)

He wanted to know why he hadn't gotten full credit. 

His was one of the better assignments. I just had a couple quibbles, things he said he would fix. 

Then I got an email from another student. And during passing period, a third student stopped by asking what she had done wrong.

Oh my. Some of them do care about their grades.

Still, a third of them hadn't bothered to do the assignments. (That third have very strong Fs at the moment, and as we have less than a month left of school, they're likely not pulling that grade up in time.) 

Jinxed It

"I think I'm all caught up..."

I didn't say it out loud, but the universe obviously heard me. And laughed.

Tuesday. Fourth period.

It was the leadership class. The student body president (who's been running the class) was talking about something to the other students, and the topic of progress reports came up.

And suddenly, I knew. Progress reports were due. And I was going to have to do them.

Because I'm the sub, no one bothered to send me the usual emails that the teachers get reminding them of such things. So, I scrambled to figure out when the things were due. 

They were due Thursday. So, I had two days. I hadn't missed the window. 

The previous sub was caught up with grading. It was the main thing he worked on during our transition day. (I checked out a computer and figured out what I needed to teach the next day.) So, it was just a matter of uploading those grades. And then comments. But I've done comments before. Doable.

Just when I thought I could relax... Yeah, never tell the universe you're caught up. Not while teaching. No one's ever caught up while teaching.

Petty Vengance

When I talked to Mrs. B before she went on leave, she told me she intended to do the grading while she was out. But the previous Friday, in a completely unsurprising move, Mrs. B asked if I could take it over. (She said mommy brain and teacher brain weren't compatible.) 

Last Friday was the end of the quarter. Grades were due. And that meant I was in charge of getting them done. 

These aren't semester grades. They're more of a progress report, but in a more official capacity. 

One of the things that the school wants on these quarter grades are comments. Comments for each student. 

The comments we can use come from a specific list. I can put in a code for the comment I want to use. But I have a limited list of things I can say. 

The last couple times I've done this, I kept it simple. I only used things like "in danger of failing" or "a pleasure to have in class". There's also an "excessive absences". If I saw that their grade went up, I can use "showing improvement". 

But this time I had a much better idea of who these students are. 

I had caught up on the grading. I input the letter grades they had earned. And it was fifth period when I could start inputting the comments. 

(The class had a make up work day. They worked. I worked. I got way more done than them.) 

I sat in the front of the room in a corner. I looked at the student name. I looked up at the student. I pondered...

At the beginning of the period, three boys refused to sit in their assigned seats. They'd been difficult off and on for the two weeks I've been covering the class. Eventually, they complied, but I had to insist. 

It turns out there's an "uncooperative attitude" comment. Hmmm. 

I also found the "disruptive behavior" comment. (That one was more useful for period eight, but I used it elsewhere as well.) 

I mean, I did use some "pleasure to have in class". Not all the students were terrible. But I got a perverse pleasure in naming some students as difficult. 

It was especially fun to do it when the kiddos were right there. (Does that make me evil? I think I'm okay with that.) 

The Grade Reports

For summer school, we weren't assigning grades. We teachers got to write little paragraphs about each student that then went home on a little progress report. The only number score was the words they read in a minute, both on the first day of school and towards the last. 

(Don't ask me how long that took. You don't want to hear me whine about it.) 

We were to send the progress reports home with the students on the last day. 

As I was in a borrowed classroom, I had no supplies. My aide went and found me a stapler. I went through and folded each progress report, wrote on the outside "to the parents of", and I stapled them shut. 

Near the end of first period, I passed them out to the students. 

And, of course, the inevitable happened. 

Every single student opened their progress reports. Every. Single. One.

Sigh.

Why did I bother to staple the things? 

What did the numbers mean? One student was trying to make a 74 into a percentage. But another student's 126 then didn't fit that narrative. 

"Remember sitting with me and reading those paragraphs for a minute? The score is how many words you read in that minute." 

They had done their post assessment the previous day, so it wasn't like they didn't remember. 

It wasn't like there wasn't anything in the reports that they shouldn't see. However, I could not explain their math grades. (I didn't know what assessment they had done for that.) 

Summer school is now over. Now I really get to take a summer vacation. 

(Maybe. The alternative education center starts up next week and the continuation high school starts the week after that.) 

Surprise A

On the penultimate day of summer school, I gave the students a figure-out-your-grade assignment. I wanted them to spend some time looking at how not doing the work (or doing the work) impacted their final point total.

Well, actually, I needed them to work on something while I was calling them up and individually having them do their post assessment reading. (Yes, I gave them busy work.) 

After everyone had done their reading, I went through the assignment to see what everyone had come up with. 

There was a note from Delilah. "I don't know if my grade is an A I don't think I added right?" 

I glanced at her totals. The A looked reasonable. She had turned in most of her work. 

After calculating their grade, I had questions for them to answer. First I asked if the grade surprised them and if they were happy with it. Delilah: "I'm happy about it but I don’t think I calculated right?". 

Then I asked what they could do to improve their grade. Delilah: "Calculate correctly, I think i'm just saying this because I never had an A in english!"

She did, indeed, have an A in English. (I double checked with a calculator while writing this post. Yup, it's an A.) 

Alas, we weren't assigning grades for the summer school. They got written progress reports. Having them calculate what their grade would have been was more so they'd get an object lesson in what doing or not doing their work nets them grade-wise. 

But they did get bragging rights. Delilah could totally tell her parents that she got an A in English in the summer. Just because it wasn't recorded anywhere doesn't mean it doesn't count. (It's not like middle school grades remain on their transcripts anyway.) 

No Name

One of the things that subs don't do much of is grading papers. And I'm glad of that. I'm always sure the kiddos are going to call me on something that wasn't "fair" or such. Am I grading too hard? Too easy? It's just so much to worry about, but I don't often have to worry about it.

But, I'm on a long term gig, and keeping up on the grading is one of those things I need to do.

Test day. One of the students said he had a question for me, but it could wait. 

Then, after the test, he asked about one of his assignments. He said he had turned it in, but there was no grade for it in the gradebook. (The gradebook is online, so they can see their scores for anything at any time.) 

I pulled out the assignment. (I had planned to pass things back after they had all completed the test, so it was right at my fingertips.) I flipped through the pages, and at the bottom of the stack, we found the one paper that had no name on it. 

Yup, it was his.

(I'm very good at keeping track of stuff, so it hadn't crossed my mind that it had gotten lost. But, I do make mistakes, so had I missed inputting a grade? Had I entered it on the wrong line? Both were plausible.)

You'd think by senior year they'd figure out the whole put-name-on-paper thing, but alas, no.