Just venting about grades!

I have to say that I definitely would complain, and strongly. IMO, if a child is not succeeding in elementary school, it is a teaching problem, NOT a problem with the child.

Karen

Karen,

Actually her school has been good to work with otherwise. She has an auditory processing disorder and just started speech/language services 3 times a week for 30 minutes individually. The principal and special ed. teacher are even talking about going to Phono-Graphix training with me. So I can hardly ask for more cooperation than that (unless they had already had all the wonderful programs, which would be a dream). But obviously, someone came up with the bright idea of changing the “un-grades” to A’s and B’s, and no one stopped to think that that wasn’t a smart idea, apparently.

Janis

I would calm down… and then complain, and to more than one person. It’s simply not consistent — and probably based on ignorance — with the decision not to give “traditional” grades. So, I’d ask lots of people why on earth they should undermine their wonderful idea of not doing grades, which you think is brilliant and enlightened on their part, with this “honor roll” thing . I’d also ask them exactly how it was determined — because you could certainly imagine a child really being eager to make the honor roll — but how? Getting A’s? That aren’t given?
I’d commend them for their intention to give positive feedback to students — but ask that they please decide just what they want to give that feedback for, and to think carefully about the fine line between encouraging students in positive ways and ranking students according to criteria they may have no control over.

Thanks, Sue. I think I’ll just print out your response and recite it to the principal!

Janis

More and more schools are opting to give traditional grades in K and 1st grade. I think it’s a wonderful idea. My own school does not grade at all until 5th grade and if I had my way, we wouldn’t begin then either. I certainly agree what your school is doing makes no sense.

The other question you might ask is this. Is publishing a students’ grades in the newspaper legal? Isn’t that a violation of FERPA - Family Educational Right To Privacy Act?

Student records - good or bad- are private. That a student made the honor roll I would think would also be private. It’s not an athletic award or a musical award. The honor roll is based on grades and thus I would think putting it in a newspaper violates your rights to privacy in regard to grades as mandated by FERPA.

Just a thought - I could be wrong.

That’s a very interesting thought, Sara. I don’t know. Parents love to get recognition so I am sure there are no complaints by the parents of the children who made the honor roll! And I guess it sounds like sour grapes for me to complain. But there is still something wrong with making a choice to not use grades with the younger children and then translate those grades to A’s and B’s for the paper. I’ll be calling the principal later today. I’ll let y’all know how it goes!

Janis

I have bad past experience with letter grades for my son in 1st grade. Before he was dxed, he was getting one f after another and at least for a couple of weeks he thought that was the first letter of his last name. I saw he knew differently when he brought me a paper that had the f made into an a with pencil. He finally had figured it out and knew it wasn’t something he wanted to show me. My other son did just fine with no letter grades until 3rd grade.

Amy, that kind of thing breaks my heart! Why do they want to kill children’s self-esteem so early?! Never should a first grader see an F!

Janis

I tried to do some research on this for you. Every school is obligated by federal law to have a written policy on FERPA. I think the A and B honor roll would be a violation.

Schools are allowed to make public the names on their honor roll but if they have an A and B honor roll they might not be. The existence of an A vs. a B honor would be based on their grades and no student grades may be made public with written consent of the parents.

If you do a websearch under FERPA, there’s a lot.

Good luck.

I talked with the principal today and very nicely expressed my complaint. He actually had no knowledge of the honor roll being in the paper at all. He said no one had ever complained, but he saw my point of changing “S,N,U” grades to A’s and B’s being problematic. He said he would check with the secretary who might have been the one who sent the info to the paper. Somewhere down the line, somebody had to be looking at the K-1 report cards and converting the grades. I did write my child’s teacher an email last night, but I haven’t heard from her yet. I am disappointed that the K and first grade teachers did not balk at that. They had to have been the ones to supply the grades. Hopefully this will cause a change…we’ll see!

Janis

Thanks a lot, Sara! I’ll have to check that out!

Janis