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Posted by Becky Rock on 23-01-2014 at 00:09:
Moronic school system
The school system my son attends HS in is run by a bunch of morons. I know some of you are teachers and I don't blame teachers for what I'm about to rant on, but I'd love your opinions on this.
My son is a junior in HS. They were supposed to have their midterm tests this week, with next Monday being a teacher compute the grades day with the 2nd semester starting on next Tuesday. It is an established policy for many years that the midterms are 20% of their 1st semester grades. next
It snowed 7 inches. That's life. It's not snowmageton. They closed school Tuesday as it snowed and shifted the midterms a day. Fine. They closed schools today for the roads to be cleared more and shifted the midterms a day again. OK. Each day they stated the midterms would stay on schedule once they got back to school.
We just got a call that the schools will be closed for the rest of the week because the Virginia Department of Transportation is apparently incapable of clearing the roads the next few days and school will resume Monday. Fine.
Then the message said midterms had been cancelled. How can they cancel them? They said nothing about how the semester grades would now be calculated.
What about the kids who use the midterm to improve their grades? About the kids sending out their college applications who could have improved their GPAs by .1 to 1 full GPA points? Those going for scholarships?
This is our third strike against this school system since our son started HS. Our son's no saint and has had his academic problems, but he doesn't need the school system actively hindering his progress.
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Posted by amethyst on 23-01-2014 at 03:24:
No child left behind is fast becoming all children left behind.
Personally, I'm not a big fan the semester finals that make or break grades. However, I do think they are an important tool for several reasons: for CP students it teaches them the college routine; it provides an academic outlet for students who perform better on testing then in other areas of school work; it allows teachers to see where they may not have taught as well as they thought (a much better gauge than standardized tests).
I can say that it does not matter what level you are at: elementary, secondary, post-secondary, or graduate; it all seems to be geared toward jumping through hoops and showing off how well you can do it, not necessarily how much you have learned.
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Posted by ChrisW on 23-01-2014 at 05:30:
*hugs* Becky, that's ridiculous. It seems so strange to cancel midterms instead of adjust schedules in another way.
I'm not a teacher so I can't speak from that POV. I know that I hated history in school until university, where it was essay exams and context instead of "match up the memorized names, dates, and events."
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Posted by k2p2 on 23-01-2014 at 12:31:
I never heard of them cancelling midterms before. WTF? They must have some sort of reasoning, or some other testing in mind to figure out how this is all going to shake out.
Keep me posted as I am curious to know.
Our district went to lining up midterms and finals to righ before the winter and spring breaks. More like a college schedule and none of this rapid cramming and review after breaks in preparation.
Makes for a rather odd school year in that they start mid August and are done by Memorial weekend, but in the long run I think it is better.
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Posted by ElectricWhite on 23-01-2014 at 21:19:
I really don't want to draw many conclusions without more information, and I think No Child Left Behind has done nothing to improve the quality of education.
I hope the school officials will explain how they're going to handle the situation and do it soon...I doubt they'd allow so many students take a big hit to their GPAs since it would also have a negative effect on the school ranking....
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Posted by Becky Rock on 24-01-2014 at 00:00:
I personally can't relate to the semester system with midterms and finals. I grew up with quarters and a final. I also feel kids can't be pigeon-holed. What's the use in creating Standards On Learning (from No Child Left Behind) if that's all you teach? How many parents have been frustrated when they ask their child what did you learn new at school today and the child tells you nothing.
This situation has now hit the local papers. The county sent out a note that although they have cancelled midterms, students will be given a chance to take them, that our school will be giving us more information tonight. So they haven't cancelled them now? It's confusing.
My problem is they established a system many years ago that includes midterms as 20% of the 1st semester grade. It doesn't say only if we have good weather. The kids have spent hours both in school and on their own studying for them. The county allows 8 snow days. We've only used 6. Stay with the established schedule. If we use up the other 2 snow days during the 2nd semester, either take away the moveable holidays they have or add a day or two to the end of the school year. That's what the county next to us is having to do because they only had 4 snow days built in and they're still having their midterms.
I haven't seen anything from the school yet.
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Posted by ChrisW on 24-01-2014 at 03:01:
Sounds like someone's gonna be in trouble for embarrassing the school board, county, or whatever. It does seem odd that they'd take such a drastic measure when they haven't even run out of snow days.
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Posted by Becky Rock on 24-01-2014 at 23:48:
They have decided the HS students may decide whether to take their midterms and they've set up a new schedule for next week for them to do so either before or after school. If the student decides not to, their grade will be 50% 1st Qtr, 50% 2nd Qtr. Those who do decide to take it will have the established breakdown of 40,40,20.
A fine example of think things through before you leap.
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Posted by ChrisW on 25-01-2014 at 00:22:
Heh heh.
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Posted by jublke on 25-01-2014 at 15:43:
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No kidding! Frankly, that sounds like a recipe for trouble too. You don't want the kids (and parents) debating that their grades would be better had they done it the other way around. Nonetheless, I hope it all works out for your son. My youngest only went to school one day last week due to holidays & weather. We are all stir-crazy here!
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Posted by k2p2 on 26-01-2014 at 11:27:
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Heh, heh, all the districts around us have had a week of delays, except ours. My daughter said it is cuz we are 'hard-core.' Frankly though I am glad for it, as this current snow we are having is really piling up and we still have 'calamity days,' left.
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Posted by Becky Rock on 27-01-2014 at 02:25:
I grew up in West Virginia. We had a county HS up on a hill. School was not cancelled for snow unless the snow was too deep for vehicles to get through. The only time I remember school being cancelled was around my 16th birthday when the wind chill was -60 F. There was one time when the National Guard came in with some incredible bulldozers that plowed the streets. My brother has a picture of the main road with snow on the sides literally as high as the telephone poles. Another brother was standing on top of a school bus and he couldn't reach the top of the snow.
I'm told its now a matter of insurance - can't take a chance of a bus crashing. Hence occasions when we've had school canceled when there was just talk of snow.
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Posted by Becky Rock on 18-01-2015 at 21:18:
I am so glad my son is graduating in a few months.
Before the school year started, the county school board started talking about ending midterms. Again, we parents threw a fit - Does the Midwest cancel midterms because it snows? hell no. Do colleges still have midterms - yes. The county keeps claiming they're preparing our kids for college. I don't see it.
They then decided to let the teachers vote whether they wanted to give midterms. To those of you who are teachers - what's your feeling on this? The teachers actually voted to continue giving them, which I will admit surprised me.
So what happens? It snows again two weeks before midterms. Not a few days, two weeks. For some reason the county did not close schools and got blasted for it. The snow started at 5 am. We ended up with 4 1/2 inches. I left for work at 7 and my 25 minute ride took 90. My husband left at 7:30 and his 45 minutes turned into 3 1/2 hrs.
The temperatures rose so it changed over into rain around 11. By the time I left work at 4, the roads were clear until you got to the neighborhoods, where it was a mess. My son said only half his teachers and students made it to school.
They of course then ran in thee other direction and school was closed for 2 days because the arctic blast hit and froze all the wet snow into icey clumps. Then the next week they called off school for the threat of snow.
So I get to the school board's latest decision to cancel midterms. They waited until the last minute to announce it so we parents couldn't do anything about it and didn't tell the teachers. They literally sent the note out as my son was taking the first half of his first one. He still has one is his computer college course from James Madison that they offer to seniors at the school because that is how college works.
You can't pull this on the kids. They plan their school work believing they're going to have the 40/40/20 breakdown. My concern is how are the colleges going to react to the transcripts that have no midterms of the kids applying from our county compared to the rest of the country? That isn't college prep.
Since this was the third go around of this, I'm sure it was the current school board's intent all along. I know I won't be voting for any of them next time, even though my son won't be in school anymore. We'll see how the rest of the voters fare on it.
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Posted by ChrisW on 19-01-2015 at 00:52:
Ugh Becky. I never planned my grades like that, I just tried to do my best all along, but if you set expectations a certain way you should do your best to stick with the rules you've set. I can tell you for sure that colleges have a sense of different areas. I was told flat out by people from the colleges when I was applying that being from central FL at the time was a handicap for the major schools because of the perceived poor quality of the school system. Then when I did go to school, I learned the hard way that I had no study skills even though I'd had high grades in high school, and really, really struggled.
So yeah, I agree, they're really shortchanging your kids. Given the whining that I've seen from parents on FB about homework over xmas break and stuff I have a feeling that some groups of parents are part of the problem, but that's a pretty limited sample to base my opinion on. I can't imagine what they think they're accomplishing. Good on you for planning to keep on paying attention to those seats when you vote even when your son's out of school.
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Posted by jublke on 19-01-2015 at 05:49:
Becky: I didn't realize that you got hit so hard down there. We didn't get as much snow up here.
I'm sorry to hear about all of the trouble you are having with your son's school. If it helps any, the school board isn't any better up here. I've gone crosswise with them over trying to save a stand of trees in my neighborhood - they wanted to build a brand new holding school (bizarre concept to begin with) on 10 acres of forest when they had a vacant school mid-county that would have met their needs. So far, the trees are still here, but I don't trust them at all. They had the surveyors in before the paperwork was signed. My neighbors and I fought with them for over a year before we got them to comply with their own guidelines.
Grrrr! Sorry, I will step off my soap box. But my theory is that school boards in the DC area have WAY too much money - literally millions of dollars to contend with - and too much reach and power. I think the school board should be split into smaller sub-boards or something. I am forever voting them out.
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Posted by ElectricWhite on 19-01-2015 at 08:35:
Sounds a lot like the issues we had here before we finally voted to get rid of the only appointed school board in the state and switch over to an elected board. I won't go into detail over all the problems they caused -- that would require more typespace than the entire Harry Potter series plus everything written about Harry Potter! Let's just say that the county could conceivably be paying off a bond for the rest of time (that's the way the damned thing was written --- I'm not exaggerating!) because they ignored all the experts who told them the high school buildings couldn't be renovated to meet the needs of a modern classroom. It was recommended that the buildings be converted into office space and new buildings be built. The board chose the more expensive option of "revamping" the buildings (some of which were built in the early 1900's): the high schools are less capable of handling the power demands of completely computerized classrooms, plus the roofs leaks so much that it's as if there were no roofs at all.
And that's just a small sampling...you wouldn't believe the nightmares they caused with their idiotic curriculum policies! But, as I said earlier, I'd be trying to post a seriously huge tome if I gave you all the details!
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Posted by E.D. Darling on 19-01-2015 at 19:29:
Sorry you're having so much trouble, Becky! We had to. Move my nephew to a charter school over thirty miles away! At least it's almost over! Best of luck on your sons midterms! Hugs!
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Dang it!
Posted by Becky Rock on 19-01-2015 at 20:30:
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Speaking of homework - that is another sore spot.
Our high schools grade homework. In some cases, the homework has as much weight as tests.
My son hates homework for two reasons: his philosophy is teach me the info and test me. That's how I prove I got the concept- not by doing homework. His second beef is some students are cheating on the homework.
Ironically, one of the other high schools in the county has decided to do away with grading homework for that very reason. They want it to b used to evaluate student understanding only.
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Posted by ChrisW on 19-01-2015 at 21:43:
In real life you can't just choose which thing you want to do at work. How does choosing whether or not you want to do your homework set you up for real life? The cheating, that is a problem, but I'm not sure getting rid of grading homework is the answer. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.
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Posted by ElectricWhite on 19-01-2015 at 22:39:
My paternal grandfather was a teacher, and he didn't assign homework at all. However, he was the rare type that, if he understood the concept, you would as well by the end of the period. Unfortunately, I didn't have that talent. I found that some kids needed a little extra practice to grasp the concept, so I assigned homework accordingly. I didn't give a lot, and I didn't give the assignments much weight.
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