PARENTS AND TEACHERS ARE ANGRY IN ROCKWOOD: "NO WORK TURNED IN GETS A 50% NO MATTER WHAT"
Rockwood middle school teachers are expressing frustration about the new way they are supposed to handle missing assignments (work that students don't turn in):
"A grade of 0 cannot be given any longer. A minimum of 50% has to be given because 'recovering from a 0 is too hard and detrimental to their grade.' It automatically calculates on Infinite Campus a 50% if marked missing. It's BULLSH*T."
The above quote is from a current teacher in a Rockwood middle school.
What she says has already been noticed by parents. This is a screenshot taken last week from a student's profile on Infinite Campus, the system that parents use to check on how their kids are doing:
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| Source: A 7th grade mom who was confused why an assignment that her child never turned in got 5 correct out of 10 anyway. |
The mom said, "I thought it was a glitch! It showed MISSING in red but then had a score of five out of ten."
ALSO: HOMEWORK= NO GRADES
"They just quit giving grades for homework in our middle school, so now homework isn't really required." That middle school mom says she think that creates no incentive to do it.
Teachers don't like the no grades on homework policy, either.
Rockwood teacher: "90% of teachers do not agree with this. We understand how kids work and they need motivation to practice (such as) their grade being effected. We do not like it. This is not a teacher based decision."
Teachers we talked to say the "higher ups" announced no more zeros for work that's not done, and that teachers didn't have a say one way or the other.
As for the no grades for homework, the teacher says they were told: "We're going to, completely, 'standards based grading.' That means we test on the standards that are expected to be met and that is what the grade reflects. Turning in homework does not tell a student if they are achieving the standards."
Meanwhile, the most current standardized MAP test data on the state's website shows just 58.3% of Rockwood's students scored proficient or advanced in Math, 60.6% scored proficient or advanced in English Language Arts (reading and writing), and 56.6% scored proficient or advanced in Science.
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| Source: DESE. Link to this data is here. DESE is Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. |
We'd love to hear from you. You can email us at whatisgoingoninrockwood@gmail.com.
EDITED
Edited to add clarification that this policy of not giving less than 50% is only required in middle schools, and that teachers say grades will be bumped up to 50% either immediately or when semester grades are calculated.