HS Teacher Question

[barkley]

My finals are really the final performances as are those at the high school (I'm middle school). At the high school finals are scheduled differently and pretty much like they are in college. Lit and Social Studies will have finals one day, Science and math another day with electives the last day. They then have two days plus the weekend to finish grading. In my district kids get out on the Thursday before Memorial Day and teachers finish on Tuesday after the holiday.

The middle school I'm at our principal makes us pack everything in our rooms the last week (that 90 boxes for me not including instruments!) so we give our written finals the week before. The last week the kids do make-up for work they are missing. Those who have everything in do activities.

our local high school does 2 sets of finals, 1 for the seniors and 1 for the other 3 grades. seniors do theirs about a week earlier b/c that way NO ONE is going to do the walk at graduation and later find out they failed a class/won't get their diploma. i think there's a pretty tight timeline on grading the senior's finals.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I'm a HS teacher. I'd be annoyed too. Is this a public or private high school? If private, I'd expect an answer within 24 hours Monday-Friday. If it's public, I'd at least expect an answer within the same week.

I have boys who are color-blind. If he can't differentiate between the colors the teacher is using, you have told the teacher this and the teacher refuses to alter their colors, I'd escalate to whoever is the teacher's supervisor.

This.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

When you weren’t getting a response from the teacher why didn’t you call and leave a message for the teacher to call you?

My daughter graduated in June and not once did I have an email address for a teacher. That’s going from K-12 as well.

Interesting because I have been in 4 school districts in two different states and they all communicated by email.

 

[monsterkitty]

Interesting because I have been in 4 school districts in two different states and they all communicated by email.

We do almost all communication by email because we can do it at night. If we call it has to be during the school day. No way am I calling from my cell phone or home phone where they can get your personal number.

 

[cabanafrau]

We do almost all communication by email because we can do it at night. If we call it has to be during the school day. No way am I calling from my cell phone or home phone where they can get your personal number.

Wouldn't the school have your personal numbers anyway?

 

[cabanafrau]

Again, you’re reading into something that just isn’t there. I’m mellow now lol

Who would have seen that coming?

 

[DopeyDame]

We do almost all communication by email because we can do it at night. If we call it has to be during the school day. No way am I calling from my cell phone or home phone where they can get your personal number.

Wait what? Doesn't the school already have your personal number for emergencies? How do they contact you if your child is sick?

 

[DisneyOma]

In class he told the teacher he couldn't read the words. The teacher said I can change the background but not to a light color because it hurts my eyes. When the color was changed son told him I still cant see them. Was told to move closer.

Not sure if you have experience with color blindness but moving closer is not going to help. Son told him this. Teacher said he wasn't sure what else to do. Son said if you use a darker color on the words I will be able to see them. Teacher again said it hurts his eyes. No one is saying he needs to keep it changed all day just for my sons hour. Son became flustered and embarrassed and felt on the spot arguing with teacher and just dropped it. Next day above convo on repeat until the entire class tells teacher at the start of the hour, still no changes are made that help and peers let him see/borrow their notes. Super helpful in geometry when he needs to be seeing the notes, drawings, etc first hand not trusting friends to get all the information he needs.

He has not gone to his counselor because he doesnt want to make waves and is making accommodations as best he can. Until grades were entered a month later he was doing decent in the class. If grades were entered in a timely manner we would have sought clarification and help earlier.

Thank you for the replies i just wanted to make sure I wasn't being unreasonable. I know that if I dont respond to parents they are all over me and the principal...

You are definitely not being unreasonable! the teacher is though - and if this teacher has such a problem with his 'eyes hurting' he might need to look at a better way to teach?

That was a different teacher, still math though....

I wouldn't think it would be a problem but this particular teacher doesn't think its necessary.

The vice principal who is also the department head called this afternoon the counselor forwarded my email to him.i am going to guess it is an ongoing problem with the teacher not responding. He told him to contact me. I am supposed to wait till Wednesday and if I don't hear back let him know.

Thanks for keeping us updated! Hope it all gets worked out soon. One way it could be solved would be for the teacher to print out whatever he's using on the board in a contrast that works for your son and give it to him at the beginning of class. We do that at our school all the time.

 

[RUDisney]

Wait what? Doesn't the school already have your personal number for emergencies? How do they contact you if your child is sick?

I think monsterkitty means that she is the teacher and doesn't want the parents to have her personal contact information.

 

[kimblebee]

Who would have seen that coming?

Aw, come on. I was never that bad.

 

[Boardwalk Jedi]

You need a 504. It's a pain in the butt, but necessary. I have it for my youngest son for a hearing issue. Honestly, I haven't had to pull it out if the teaching practices are good. I've only needed it for a few teachers who are not the strongest in my opinion.

 

[monsterkitty]

Wouldn't the school have your personal numbers anyway?

Wait what? Doesn't the school already have your personal number for emergencies? How do they contact you if your child is sick?

I'm the teacher. If I call parents at night, they can get my personal numbers. No way am I calling at night. My DH made that mistake once and the parent called many times.

 

[Floridaman999]

Again, you’re reading into something that just isn’t there. I’m mellow now lol

Payoff of the legalization?

Are you debauching again?

 

[kimblebee]

Payoff of the legalization?

Are you debauching again?

HAHAHA no, no legalized activities for me. It makes my heart race too much and I already take meds for a fast heart rate.

Debauching will have to wait until tomorrow. Tonight I’m glued to CNN..

 

[cabanafrau]

I'm the teacher. If I call parents at night, they can get my personal numbers. No way am I calling at night. My DH made that mistake once and the parent called many times.

I get it. I didn't understand you were the teacher, not the parent. That's so rude to impose like that.

Ironically I still get occasional calls from a couple of my daughters' teachers, even though one is in college and one has her degrees and is fully into her career. Just last week my younger daughter texted me to let me know one had reached out to her asking if it would be okay to contact me for some help with something that I've worked on with her a few times in the past and I know the choir director will be reaching out soon because my husband still does photos and set building and we both still work on the Playbill. I do feel comfortable enough to go ahead and text info. to a couple of the teachers I've worked with over the years when I have been out someplace and run across a notice posted that I know they would like to be aware of. I just snap a picture and forward it along. For other information I will email with a link when I run across something.

 

[DopeyDame]

I'm the teacher. If I call parents at night, they can get my personal numbers. No way am I calling at night. My DH made that mistake once and the parent called many times.

Oh doh! Sorry - I misunderstood. I thought you were a parent who didn't want to call school and give them your personal numbers. Makes perfect sense for a teacher to only want to call from school phones.

 

[ahutton]

I would pursue the 504, as what we were told with DD is the accommodations are much easier to get in college if there was a plan in place in high school. It seems like the teacher really does not understand the issue, we've been lucky to NOT encounter this with DD.

 

[MrsPete]

...In addition son is color blind. It is noted on his emergency card, son has told the teacher and I did at conferences. Teacher still posts assignments in red - class work and green - homework. He also consistently does notes and examples on a light background with light colors so my ds cant see the difference. When he tells teacher he cant see them the teacher tells him he can't alter the background color because it hurts the teachers eyes. Ok but my kid cant see the materials and is relying on getting the info from peers. ...

Everyone's talking about the student's needs ... but it sounds like the teacher has special needs too. Both need to be accommodated. The clear answer is, Let the teacher keep using the background color that works well for him ... but print out a copy of the Power Point -- we are talking about Power Point or Google Slides, right? -- so the student can have the print-out in black and white. OR send the Power Point to the student /allow him to follow along on a personal computer -- and he'd be free to switch the background color on that computer to whatever suits him.

Explain to the teacher that your son is having problems, and offer solutions.

Also, keep in mind that students tell us teachers stories about why they "can't do this or that" all day long -- if whining and excuse-making were Olympic events, my students would bring home gold for America. It may be that your son's teacher has heard so many excuses that he's kind of brushed this one off. It'd be wise to email teachers at the beginning of the semester, introduce yourself, and let them know that your son has a problem viewing things on the board -- and, at that time, give examples of what's worked well for him.

In high school, I don’t get involved unless my kid has exhausted all options.

I agree that the student should TRY to handle the issue himself first. As a parent, when a problem comes along, I'd like to hear TWO THINGS my student had done to try to solve the problem before asking me to step in.

I think 100+ emails a day is unrealistic. I highly doubt any high school teacher is getting that many per day from parents. It's 2018. It is unrealistic to have to play phone tag with a teacher. An email can be responded to in 1-3 minutes. I would think teachers would prefer email. If you are on the phone with them they will have your ear forever.

I probably average 50 emails on an average day, but that's not all parents.

... When my daughter was in 9th grade her teacher would write on the board in cursive- most of the kids couldn't read cursive and they told her that and she continued to do it ...

Thing is, kids do need to be able to read cursive, and it's not like it's really all that different -- an average kid who isn't atuned to cursive might need a little more time, but he or she shouldn't see cursive as a whole different ball game. They need to be able to tell time on an analog clock too.

But I ALWAYS made my kids deal with that by handing the teacher the graded homework and asking why it was listed a missing in P.S..

Perhaps this is coming across differently in writing, but this sounds pretty aggressive: "Here's my work. Why do I have a missing grade?" It sounds accusatory.

Speaking only for myself, I have over 100 students in a semester and well over 1000 grades in my Power School over the course of a semester. And Power School is far from user-friendly. Most often when a grade is missing, it's because the student turned the work in late -- and putting in one single make-up grade takes almost as long as inputting a whole class' quiz grades. Because it's so labor-intensive, I sometimes do keep a list of late work that needs to be input later, and I save it 'til I have a chunk of time in which to work. I ask students not to discard classwork until they've seen it correctly in the computer.

Not sure how they did it, but with just a few exceptions, it seemed to be complied with. How do you deal with finals? Here, all grades are due the day after the last day of finals.

Two answers:
- Semester grades must be finalized /submitted to the office the week before exams, so during finals teachers are focused JUST on that one test. They aren't juggling tomorrow's lesson and make-up work and whatever else. It's easy to handle ONE TEST, even if it's a big one. Also, it's rare that students are absent for the exam, so make-up work isn't an issue. I don't think people realize the multi-tasking required in the classroom.
- I don't think we're unique in this: The state provides our exam and grades it. So, realistically, exams are pretty easy for teachers (preparation for exams is tough). We just hand out the state test, then wait for the state to send us the grades. It's not a good system, but it's a whole lot easier (from the teacher's end) than a regular test.

 

[DonaldnDaisy5]

Everyone's talking about the student's needs ... but it sounds like the teacher has special needs too. Both need to be accommodated. The clear answer is, Let the teacher keep using the background color that works well for him ... but print out a copy of the Power Point -- we are talking about Power Point or Google Slides, right? -- so the student can have the print-out in black and white. OR send the Power Point to the student /allow him to follow along on a personal computer -- and he'd be free to switch the background color on that computer to whatever suits him.

Explain to the teacher that your son is having problems, and offer solutions.

Also, keep in mind that students tell us teachers stories about why they "can't do this or that" all day long -- if whining and excuse-making were Olympic events, my students would bring home gold for America. It may be that your son's teacher has heard so many excuses that he's kind of brushed this one off. It'd be wise to email teachers at the beginning of the semester, introduce yourself, and let them know that your son has a problem viewing things on the board -- and, at that time, give examples of what's worked well for him.

I agree that the student should TRY to handle the issue himself first. As a parent, when a problem comes along, I'd like to hear TWO THINGS my student had done to try to solve the problem before asking me to step in.

I probably average 50 emails on an average day, but that's not all parents.

Thing is, kids do need to be able to read cursive, and it's not like it's really all that different -- an average kid who isn't atuned to cursive might need a little more time, but he or she shouldn't see cursive as a whole different ball game. They need to be able to tell time on an analog clock too.

Perhaps this is coming across differently in writing, but this sounds pretty aggressive: "Here's my work. Why do I have a missing grade?" It sounds accusatory.

Speaking only for myself, I have over 100 students in a semester and well over 1000 grades in my Power School over the course of a semester. And Power School is far from user-friendly. Most often when a grade is missing, it's because the student turned the work in late -- and putting in one single make-up grade takes almost as long as inputting a whole class' quiz grades. Because it's so labor-intensive, I sometimes do keep a list of late work that needs to be input later, and I save it 'til I have a chunk of time in which to work. I ask students not to discard classwork until they've seen it correctly in the computer.

Two answers:
- Semester grades must be finalized /submitted to the office the week before exams, so during finals teachers are focused JUST on that one test. They aren't juggling tomorrow's lesson and make-up work and whatever else. It's easy to handle ONE TEST, even if it's a big one. Also, it's rare that students are absent for the exam, so make-up work isn't an issue. I don't think people realize the multi-tasking required in the classroom.
- I don't think we're unique in this: The state provides our exam and grades it. So, realistically, exams are pretty easy for teachers (preparation for exams is tough). We just hand out the state test, then wait for the state to send us the grades. It's not a good system, but it's a whole lot easier (from the teacher's end) than a regular test.[/QUOTE
Perhaps you are right. Kids make stuff up all the time. I get it. I am a teacher too. However, when no response is given it makes me much less compassionate and understanding.

If the teacher has needs as well then he should be willing to communicate what options he is will to do to accommodate both their needs. I do not want to tell him he has to provide my son with copies without a conversation with him. I am also not providing my son a computer to throw in his already jam packed backpack to be stolen or broke.

However when you don't communicate or respond I am left with no choice but to believe my son.

 

[DonaldnDaisy5]

No call or email by teacher as directed by end of the school day. I emailed vice principal back as he wanted an update. Within an hour of that email I received a call I couldn't answer because I was dismissing my own students.

Received a two sentence response saying sorry for not responding and that he corrected a grading error on the test raising son's grade three percentage points.

Nothing addressing the issues of not being able to see notes and assignments and nothing regarding how long the grading process is taking.