Unexpected Vacation

Today (1/15/) we received one of the most cherished gifts God can give—a snow day. Actually, it was a “cold” day, the temperatures dropping to below zero. We should have been off yesterday, but the principal made her decision not to close school before the 6-8 inches started falling at 5 am. By the time school began about 4 inches had fallen, making driving to school a nightmare for both students and teachers. It took some almost 2 hours to make the usual 40 min drive in. While she really didn’t need to, the principal gave the school the day off to make up for yesterday, though I doubt she would admit to that. By the time I got a chance to finish the post our snow day had ballooned into a 5 day vacation. Friday was even more bitterly cold than Thursday, so school was called off for a second day, and Monday was Dr. Martin Luther King’s holiday resulting in a 5 day weekend.

In response to my last entry on semester grades, some think I am crazy or incompetent for not understanding the Spanish teacher’s point of view, some think I am dead right and think something needs to be done about it by the administration, and some wanted to know what innumerate¹ means. These people are, respectively; English teachers, Science teachers, and Social Studies teachers. I suspect if a fair poll was taken that students and parents would be firmly in my camp.

A friend from the Theology Department wants to side with the Spanish teacher, except for the fact that she is very bright and sees the inherent problem with what she did. The Theology teacher does not trust the program that calculates the grades, so she is conflicted about what to think. She is just too bright not to see the powerful logic in my argument. Some of her colleagues in Theology should be as intelligent.

One of our colleagues has taken the calculating of grades to new heights of illogic. The administration has specified a grade scale that we all must use; matching percentages with letter grades. The computer has been programmed to follow this; each teacher is required to use it for his or her own class. If a student has an average of 92% in my class, the computer assigns that a letter grade of A-; while an average of 91% receives a B+. The computer calculates percentages to two decimal places, but rounds off to the nearest whole percentage when assigning grades; so a 91.50% is an A- and a 91.49% is a B+.

Our misguided colleague goes over her grades and changes the rounding so a 91.99% becomes a B+; her reason being that it is not 92%. She does this for every grade that is just below the cut-off, but would round up to the next highest letter grade. She claims that is more “accurate” to round using 3 decimal places instead of the two the computer uses. Not only does she not understand the concept of “accurate”, but “fairness” as well. There is no justice in a grading system that assigns two different letter grades for the same percentage grade. This is just another instance of a lawsuit waiting to happen; or, in the hands of a different principal, grounds for dismissal (falsifying grades).

A colleague in the Math Department thinks that someone in administration changes the grades back to what they should be if the parents complain; never telling the teacher who issued the grade that it was changed. This solves the problem of legal action, and prevents an uncomfortable confrontation with the teacher. It is more likely that the person in charge of entering the grade changes requested by the teacher on the grade verification sheets knows what is going on, and has been instructed to leave the grades as they were. This makes sense because after the grades are verified they disappear from the teacher’s screen and can’t be viewed again.


¹in•nu•mer•ate; unable to do arithmetic, lacking a basic knowledge and/or understanding of mathematics and unable to use numbers in calculations (Encarta Dictionary)

Objectivity is Subjective

This is the week that grades for first semester are due. The last of the semester exams were given on December 18th and grades were due on January 5th. After grades are entered in the computer and saved, the registrar prints a copy for each teacher for them to verify. The purpose of “grade verification” is to verify that the recorded grades are correct and complete. For example, every so often one of the grades on the printout is different from the grade in my grade book, usually because I entered it incorrectly. One student did not have a grade for her semester exam, even though she took it, because I missed her paper when I was entering them. The grade verification process allows me to correct these mistakes before they are stored in the main school computer. The process is necessary to insure that first semester report cards are correct. Some of my colleagues have perverted the process into something which is not only unfair to students, but will someday lead a student or parent to threaten legal action against the school and/or teacher.

Semester grades are determined by averaging two quarter grades and the semester exam. To do this the computer assigns number values to the letter grades, averages these number values, and assigns a semester grade based on a scale determined by the administration. The quarter grades count 2/5 each and the semester grade is counted as 1/5 of the final grade. The semester grades are very important to the student. They are the only grades reported on the student’s official transcript, and are used to calculate cumulative GPA and class rank. In my mind, it is a question of basic fairness and justice that these grades are assigned with complete objectivity. There is no excuse to use a subjective interpretation of scores to assign semester grades. Unfortunately this is exactly what some teachers in my building do.

During my preparation period yesterday I was in the faculty work room checking my grades with the computer. The language teacher across from me was doing the same, but I noticed that she was making corrections to many of the grades on her verification sheet. I asked if the computer had made that many mistakes on her grades, knowing I only had two corrections in five classes. She pointed out a student whose grade she had changed and told me that she had given him an “A” for first and second quarters and he had gotten a “B” on the semester exam. The computer had given him an “A” for his semester grade. “That won’t fly with me.” was her comment. “I changed it to an “A-.”

The computer assigns a value of 4.0 for each A and 3.0 for the B. Because of the 2/5, 2/5, 1/5 weighting, the computer takes 4.0 + 4.0 + 4.0 + 4.0 + 3.0 = 19.0 and divides by 5. The resulting average is 3.8, which falls in the “A” range (4.3-3.7). She was seeing
A + A + B = A, and rejecting it because, from a subjective standpoint, it didn’t look right to her. Semester grades can not be assigned subjectively. Those of you who still think that she is correct might want to look at this situation again considering the weighting of the quarters and exam grades. When you do you will see that, A + A + A + A + B = A seems more fair. This is exactly why the administration set up the system so the computer assigns semester grades and teachers don’t! All it would take would be a savvy parent or student who noticed A,A, B on the report card for two classes with the student receiving an A in one and an A- in the other for the semester to begin a process that might lead to legal action. Especially if the grade reduction might effect scholarship eligibility or class rank.


You probably won't be surprised to find out that many of the teachers in the building who do the same thing, are in the English or Language Department. When I told this story to a friend from the Math Department I could see him cringe. This is what happens when the innumerate are in charge.

Happy New Year!

I began writing this post a little after 2:00 pm on December 18th; the start of school being delayed because of the ice storm last night. The last exam was scheduled to begin at 8:00 am, but we all got a phone call the night before from the automated system that the exam would be delayed until 1:00 pm because of the storm.

The night before, my wife and I attended the Christmas party for school and had a very good time. The food was delicious; the company at our table interesting, and the drinks were free for the first hour. We left the festivities at about 8:00pm, expecting the bad weather to begin by then, but none of the ice and snow appeared until after midnight. The next morning, I was able to dig out from the storm before making the drive to school to give my last exam.

Of the 25 students 7th period 3 were missing. All three made up the exam the next week; the make-up exams being administered by the assistant principals on a schedule posted on the school web site. I only needed to leave a copy of the exam and grade it today, our first day back.

The students in my regular chemistry class did reasonably well on their semester exam. The boy in danger of failing got a B and so did the girl who looked asleep during the exam. She would have gotten a B+, but failed to write her test number on the answer sheet, a mistake that I deduct 5 points for.

It looks like I will lose one student from Honors Chemistry because of financial reasons. His family is unable to continue paying the tuition and he will be transferring this week
He was my lowest achieving student, failing 2nd quarter, and I would expect that it is difficult to justify spending family resources on such an unmotivated child. One honors chem. student was moved into a regular chem. class at my request. I wrote about this clown in a previous post. Besides being lazy, unmotivated, and disruptive, he is an ass. Another student, a very hard working young lady, had a change in her schedule and moved from 7th period to 6th period Honors Chemistry.

At the department chairman meeting yesterday the principal informed us that approximately 15 students left at semester for financial reasons. This is a typical number for us, and apparently is not related to the economic downturn we are all experiencing. We expect to see a decrease in enrollment over the next few years, which should turn around once the economy does. In my 30+ years here we have gone through these enrollment contractions several times because of the economy, each time rebounding to new enrollment highs when conditions changed.

Hopefully this time will be no different.