a. I talked more w/ the teacher via email from work today. I told him I thought his grading policy was invalid, unethical, and possibly illegal, and gave him reason why.
b. He called me on the phone and said he would boost Catherine’s grade for the quarter to a B. He further went on to say that he will not base grades on a sales quota for yearbooks here on out, but (after a bit of questioning) would continue to base grades on a quota of ads sold. He said Catherine’s grade of a “B” is a result of her not selling many ads for this quarter. (For the record, Catherine worked her ass off this quarter on the yearbook class. She is the only one in her class who has Photoshop and knows how to use it. She spent many weekends at home working on the yearbook.)
c. I told him on the phone I was unimpressed; her grade for this quarter (now a “B” all of the sudden) doesn’t reflect the work & sweat she put into the yearbook. Furthermore he acknowledged that - starting next year - he will continue to give a student’s grade based on the number of ads they sell. Near the end of the conversation he seemed extremely agitated and, well, pissed off.
d. When I got home from work I asked Catherine when she first learned her grade was a function sales quotas (for both the yearbook itself and ads contained within). She said there was never a formal announcement, and that she first became aware of it about halfway through the fourth quarter.
e. At 10 AM tomorrow I have a face-to-face-meeting with the principal.
Catherine is an incredible artist IMO, and works extremely hard at it. Having said that, she is not a stellar student otherwise; her current GPA is a 3.0, as she has always struggles in math and science. For many colleges, 3.0 is a threshold. This is one of the reasons I am being such a hard ass on this.
I just want to say, get down with your bad self, Crafter Man. This sounds like an excellent way to handle the situation (on your behalf–the teacher sounds like an incompetent twit who’s running scared), and I suspect I’m not the only one vicariously Fighting the Power through this story.
This tells me that the teacher has no objective grading scale and is changing her grade willy-nilly just to shut you up. Can you image calling the algebra teacher and complaiing about a grade? They would just point to the test and quiz scores. This is super-fishy. I seriously am wondering if kickbacks are involved.
I retract all but the first sentence of post #73. When a teacher caves that quickly and completely, he fucked up, he knows he fucked up, and he’s running scared.
Since she wasn’t given the information about the class requirements at a reasonable time, I agree that you should see the principal. If you know people on the school board, be prepared to call them, too, if you don’t get anywhere. Go to a school board meeting and speak to the entire board. You may have to apply to be put on the agenda, or your board may allow public comments.
It’s very odd that the teacher keeps changing the grade. I taught math, and it was a 90, 80, 70, etc. scale, and I can’t imagine moving a kid from a 52 to an 85 or something like that.
It seems very weird and is a glaring opportunity for parents to buy a grade for their kid (what proof is there that year books are being sold to real people? If the kid’s Mum owns a business she can buy ad space in the year book at whatever price she needs to ensure an A for her kid.)
Burn it all to the ground. Record all your conversations (if in a 1 party consent state). Maybe they will end up paying your kid’s college tuition. I’d try to bankrupt anyone involved.
How much of an actual ‘class’ is Yearbook considered? She gets a grade, so I guess it’s an elective class and not just an extracurricular activity (which is what yearbook always was when I was in high school). IMO it isn’t unfair to make ad and actual book sales part of the graded activity in a class actually called ‘Yearbook’, as long as it’s made apparent to everyone beforehand. Did she know that sales were part of the graded course ahead of time? Did she know that not having a car would effect this? Having a car in high school still isn’t exactly the norm, so I would hope so.
An elective course will often have specific, unusual requirements that regular, required classes won’t (and can’t). Still, what should matter is how hard she *tried *to sell ads & yearbooks, how much she participated in trying to make sales, not her actual sales numbers. Given her talent I would also think that she could do a lot towards sales, even if she couldn’t ‘pound the pavement’ enough…
Since the OP describes her as a junior (and one with a borderline-okay GPA at that), it seems likely that her grade in this class is potentially quite significant, especially if she is dreaming of attending an art/design college where her grades in relevant courses (and the yearbook class might count as such) will be looked at closely.
I am also the parent of a high school junior, and have been led to believe that my son’s GPA is extremely important in the college admissions process - as is the story it tells over time. An overall GPA that is less than perfect but which shows steady improvement leading to excellent grades by the end of junior year isn’t terribly destructive to one’s college acceptance prospects, or so say the counselors. But a bad grade late in one’s high school career is potentially damaging.
Add that to the fact that she might want to go for an early action/early decision option, or apply to schools like the UC system with application deadlines quite early in the school year, and a grade in a second-semester high school course starts to look pretty significant.
Possibly - but Crafter did already have two interactions with the teacher where it seems like the person doubles down on their position so it seems like more than bad judgment.
What do you think would be appropriate consequences for the teacher and school? Merely changing the grade of the student would not be sufficient in my mind - a message needs to be sent somehow. If it’s a public school, I assume any actual discipline is impossible. The only other avenue is money, or shame. At that point, it’s merely a question of magnitude. This is a major component of the civil justice system.
I might go along with the idea that this class teaches an actual business-like life skill if this teacher was qualified to teach that. Someone with maybe an MBA and a background in business. But I’m finding that rather unlikely, sounds like quite the opposite.
IIRC, my homeroom teacher taught US history, economics and government. Wonder how long it would have taken her to finish all three masters’ degrees (in addition to the one she actually had in education)?
Fun story: one of my law school classmates has been unable to find lawyer jobs in her (rural) area. So she’s continuing to teach high school for the time being, and since they have a law degree she is now teaching something called “street law” as well as US history.
Which is why schools should stick to academics. There could be a whole nuther discussion on the concept of schools concentrating on business skills, but that’s not the way things operate now.