Condensed Version of Last Week

Last week was a little less stressful than the week before. My luck seemed to have improved some.

I worked with the freshmen a lot Tuesday through Thursday, especially on Wednesday and Thursday. H and I were also able to look at Springboard and see where we can trim some of the unnecessary stuff and push through a little faster in some other areas, which was incredibly relieving to both of us. I also started planning for taking over the Sophomore class, which will be the class I focus on for my TWS. I put real grades into the gradebook on Thursday evening, but because of the snow day on Friday, didn't see any students right away to see how they felt about their incredibly low grades. After putting the grades in, most of my students were failing because they have not passed in most of their work. Work that was primarily done in class. Today (Monday) I've had several students come see me and ask me about their missing work, so it seems that at least some of them are looking on PowerSchool to see what it is they are missing.

I think H and I see grades somewhat similarly. We have a Freshman Academy grading policy, but we're a little softer on the Freshman than some other teachers might be. I believe that students are responsible for their own grades and should know what they are missing, but I also know that a lot of students, especially Freshmen haven't really figured that out, so I'm using a 0 as a placeholder to remind them what they are missing when they check their grades. If they come see me and make up the work, I will give them the grade they earned. If students put the effort into it, even if it is late, and they get a good grade, they see that as an academic success. We want students to achieve academic success, not failure, so I would much rather work with them to help them succeed.