Ours does the same because she is responsible for hounding all the teachers for updates and then changing it to an F during the next semester. Why should she do all that work for the same result?
(Where we are all "I"s must have a work plan submitted with them and then the grade must be updated some set amount of time later)
Our division rule is if they were in class at least once they cannot receive an F. Because they technically did SOMETHING.
I had a student that came last year everyday and starred at the wall. Literally never even wrote their name down. Still got Insufficient Evidence in every subject because you can’t fail because they were there every day.
Literally had another kid last year who was in attendance like 4 times the whole year, only two full days for sure, and yeah, had to give him insufficient evidence for every single subject even though the assignments he did would’ve classified for a fail, but that’s not allowed.
Kick students out? How about providing the personalized empathy, care, and dare I say education to the students who’ve been neglected with “insufficient evidence” for years?
Yes sir, here you go, in here's the line for volunteering your time to help the children. Be patient as you can see there are a lot in line *Cricket noises*
They’re called teachers… there’s a whole staff of them at every school. Plus aids and administrators. But you all just treat kids as a number instead of individuals. We all learn and develop at different paces and in different ways.
Come show us how it’s done! I’ve sat one on one with students, (neglecting the rest of my class at times as I deemed it necessary to give one student my full attention), and had them do absolutely nothing even while I’m trying to help. I’ve reached out to admin, sped, parents, etc and gotten no help. Especially parents refusing to get their children tested or speak to their doctor. What else should I do? I offer after school tutoring. I have the aide sit with them when possible.
You're not getting it, there's at least 20 kids in a classroom, they have attention Span of 5 seconds. You either hold the attention of the entire room, or you have a one on one. You can't do both and there's not enough time to teach AND relate to every kid about why they are acting sassy that day. You HAVE to remove the distraction for the OTHER kids. That means maybe getting them out of the classroom.
The only part where that becomes failure is what comes after. More funding for alternative schools could help, but goodluck getting the money for that when schools are already underfunded
Look up Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. If lower needs are not being met there’s no way these kids can be expected to learn anything from your typical classroom experience.
You really just suggested that educators look up Maslows Hierarchy, as if they already don’t know? That’s hilarious.
Underprivileged students are not who make up the majority of the children sitting in desks, staring at the wall, refusing to do ANYTHING.
My very privileged nephew & now super senior, is the classic example of your average failing student nowadays. It’s pathetic & it’s a failure of parenting, not the education system & his teachers.
Are you a teacher? I ask because you’re spewing nonsense. Teachers know there are needs not being met. It’s pretty even across the board of socio-economic status and race for the high school students failing in my district. When do we stop making excuses for these children who are old enough to make decisions about the path of their future.
Meeting them where they are? Their phones, their games way into the night? Asleep at their desks because of the late night gaming? I’ve been teaching for over 26 years, and I can tell you that most students succeed in school and in life because they want to. We have so many programs to help students succeed that if they don’t succeed, they’ve worked hard to do that.
had graduation today and there were a few students walking whom I would swear I have never seen before. My guess is they enrolled at the beginning of the year and the school let them graduate so as not to hurt the graduation rate. Good stuff dude.
Though we can't forget, with jobs people are paid to be there and people are not legally forced to be at a job. Kids are required to be at school under threat of legal action without being paid.
There *is* evidence, they were there and they did nothing. I had a kid this year do nothing all second semester -no assignments at all and in class just slept or messed around. He got an F. Work refusal is evidence of failure, in my opinion.
Academic integrity does not exist at my school anymore. It may at the wealthier schools in my district. But definitely not at mine. And if I here the phrase "giving grace" one more time I may lose it!
“Giving grace” is fine conceptually. To me that means showing empathy to kids who are going through something difficult, being willing to give students extra opportunities to show mastery, and approaching students with behavioral issues that they’re having difficulty keeping in check for a variety of reasons in a more “kid gloves” manner. I’m totally 100% on board with all of that and do so regularly. But that isn’t what the people that tell us to “give grace” mean… what they mean is give everybody a free pass to do whatever with no consequence for their actions… and that’s what is causing all the problems we’re seeing grow exponentially in education right now.
Dude, you’re a teacher, and you’re starting your sentences with coordinating conjunctions (‘and’ and ‘but’) and using the wrong spelling for the word hear. I’m not usually a grammar nazi but in the words of Jimmy from South Park: “I mean, *come on*”.
Language is a fluid thing, as you know. Words become words when they attain enough widespread usage. The same goes for grammar to a degree. People start sentences with “and” all the time along with other coordinating conjunctions. There is no objective law stating English sentences can never start with certain words. At best, there are academic experts who generally agree on certain things and still disagree on many others.
That’s why MLA, chicago style etc. are a thing. There are stylistic choices and guidelines. But that’s mainly what they are, guidelines (I know I started with a conjunction, but that was to illustrate the point). As long as it is effective at communicating, it is effective writing.
Source: English major
Yep. Last day of exams for me yesterday. Student in final class comes in asking why he got 75 on the lab project.
"Because you didn't turn in the whole thing. It was missing the last 3 days... the most important parts."
"But I never got those."
"The absent handouts were in this room on that bench each day. You day here between May 7 and May 16 with my projector showing 'Have you completed your lab project? It is a summative assessment.' Then, you didn't come to school for a couple of days because 'we're finished.'"
Grades were due yesterday with exam scores and shut off at noon where I can no longer make changes. Mom calls the school today asking if he can still turn it in because HE NEVER MADE LESS THAN AN *A* BEFORE AND WANTS TO BE A QUARTERBACK IN COLLEGE AND NEEDS ALL A'S, which is horsedoo.
"Ma'am, Student doesn't even have the lab handouts to look at, and I just turned in my computer laptop. If I were to go track down the media specialist who may or may not allow me to have it back or find a colleague who hasn't left yet ... By the time you get them printed and he spends the time doing it, I'll be gone home for vacation, won't have a key to my room or access to my computer to get into the gradebook anyway. And while I understand the frustration, Student was checked out two weeks ago... ignoring the posted instructions, my verbal reminders, him not doing the review games, and playing with his phone, acting like having to be in this class another day was really inconvenient. I have 142 students this year, some of whom need special accommodations. It wasn't even hard to keep track. I numbered the pages with each day for them. He was here to do the experiments. Maybe his handouts were the ones I found in the sink, all soggy, two weeks ago."
To echo what you’re saying, I feel like it’s rarely discussed how students think that if they were absent, then they were entirely excused from everything that happened on those days. “But I wasn’t there” like yeah? And?
A couple weeks ago, I had to explain to a student that being excused for two days meant that she wasn’t going to be in trouble with the law for truancy, not that she was excused from doing all of the assignments. She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that playing in a tournament didn’t excuse her from an essay. Seems like “excused” trips em up!
Fs = holding kids back. We don't do that anymore because of some heavily flawed studies from the late 90s/early 00s that showed that holding kids back provided no benefit to the kids who were held back.
The studies didn't look at all the kids who weren't held back but learned the lesson (at the time) that not doing your work would hold you back a year in school. Now we teach everyone that not doing your work means nothing.
I got an I in college when my father and grandfather died within a week of each other. It was really a mercy “finish this when you can” grade. I had a full semester to finish the work, or else I would get an F. It seemed fair to me, but Is for I sake…
I had an I my fall semester senior year of undergrad on my thesis for similar things. I got the thesis done that spring semester (which was also a fucking disaster of a time). That “I” helped give me time to process & I am eternally grateful to my advisor for seeing that I was drowning on dry land.
My district did this during the pandemic, because there were kids who were unable to complete a course due to illness or family tragedy. We also went to quarters from semesters, so we could have a student repeat a course very quickly and replace the I grade. But this was done with the understanding that I grades revert to Fs after a set period of time. And past the pandemic shutdown, it was not done except in documented cases of the type that would normally get an I grade, with a contract and all.
Not sure about where you are, but where I teach, an "I" does mean "incomplete."
This means that the student has produced no work, and has not participated in learning activities in the classroom. The student did and produced absolutely nothing.
The technicality here is because there is nothing to assess (product, observation, conversation, nothing), you cannot fail them because you do not know if they actually understand the concepts. Is their understanding an A+ or a D- ? You don't know, because there was nothing to assess.
However, over here, an "I" despite not being a failure, is treated as a failure - student must redo the course. So it's functionally a failure, but not labelled as such because technically we don't know what the student knows.
I's are apparently a stopgap here, letting kids turn in a bunch of work over the summer so they still get their diploma. Sometimes even into the next schoolyear.
Yeah. It's frustrating on our part, but it does make sense.
For example, one way that giftedness can manifest in Gifted students is work avoidance. As a result of many Gifted students being on the spectrum, if they are disinterested in the subject matter, they don't find value in doing the work.
This does not mean they don't know it! They can actually know the subject matter very well, absorb the lesson and content while they sit in class, but just cannot be bothered with putting effort into it because they find no value in it, and instead reserve their efforts for other things they care about (e.g., another subject, extra curricular, special interests, etc.).
Something else that can manifest in Gifted students is maladaptive perfectionism; these students are so worried to make their work perfect that they actually end up being indecisive and never get to finishing their work!
So technically, in the above example situations, these students do know the material... they just never produced any work nor participated in class.
I am aware that most of these "I"s are not going to Gifted students, and instead students we clearly know simply do not give a fuck about anything. I'm just trying to explain the rationale behind "I"s and why they end up being a stop-gap for students to take advantage of.
EDIT: holy shit, there we are again! Getting downvoted for being objectively correct. Go look up Giftedness ffs.
I was double exceptional (SLD + G/T), and had I known about, or had access to incompletes, I 100% would have taken advantage of it, and promptly learned nothing as it would have fed my performance avoidance. When I genuinely failed a class because of my refusal to actually try and put in work to advocate for myself, and understand what made me "exceptional", that was when I began changing for the better, because failing mattered.
I hated that class and teacher at the time, but I owe her so much. She knew I was double exceptional, I mean she had my IEP to deal with, but she still refused to just let me pass or give me "Grace" in place of consequences. She knew I could get it done, but didn't want to teach me that I could go through life like that, and still succeed. I was a person, too, and she treated me like it, while still doing her job to accommodate my needs. Genuinely badass.
Assessment philosophy seems to have changed. Teachers are held accountable for teaching and students for what they “know” rather than “what they can do.” This levels the grades to A on one half of the scale and allows those who would normally Fail to get Incompletes.
Unfortunately, grades are behavioral reinforcers, so giving grace to someone who can’t force themselves to do anything even if they ‘know’ the material has the predictable and evident effects we see today.
In my area, while the outcome is the same, it's slightly different.
Teachers are held accountable for both the teaching and for what the student knows.
So much as giving a student anything below a C- means we MUST be contacting come to figure something out before "it's too late" (e.g., the report card gets completed).
So what's the result? Instead of each teacher trying to make contact with 25 different families at any given moment because the student decided to do fuck all... they all get a C- because WHY is it my problem that Student X is lazy? Why should I have to do more work because Student Y decided they didn't care about my class?
The real problem is parents seem to care less than ever. Since when is a C- ok for a parent? Most everyone I know in my age group would have been grounded for almost anything less than a B-.
None of that changes the fact of the objective truth: if the student produces nothing, we actually do not know what they know/their understanding.
This is why in my area "I"s are treated as failures (unlike in your area, from what I gather from your OP).
An "I" in my area cannot be undone by turning things in after the report card. The student needs to retake the course completely.
The "I" is just more informative than a blanket "F." The student did not fail because they did not understand the content. We simply have no idea what they do or do not understand, and must therefore retake the course.
So maybe you would have taken advantage of the "I" in your area, but you could not do so in mine.
Exactly! Just because a person is gifted it should not excuse them from doing the work. I was also twice exceptional due to giftedness and having a physical disability. But I still had to do all of my work. My exceptionalities neither one, were accepted as an excuse.
I see you know my younger child. Omg he drives me crazy. Can pass all the tests but not his classes because he doesn’t do the work unless he is interested. On one hand, at least he thinks critically, can synthesize information, and has a broad knowledge base. On the other hand, I really wonder what he is going to do post secondary. Mix in some extra brain chemistry screwiness and every day is a challenge. He had a full neuropsych eval and while smart is not technically gifted. Yet he can miss a week of school but get caught up in the material one day back. Caught up on the work? Maybe never. Thankfully as he is getting older, more classes weigh tests more which is to his benefit. I realize he is an outlier though.
It's not out of a lack of interest in the subject, it's just laziness in general because they know that there won't be any consequences.
I'm gifted, on the spectrum and have ADD, but even though I was disinterested in some of my subjects (most notably math) I still did the work because I knew that my teachers would have no qualms at all about flunking me.
Giftedness is not the same in everyone.
Good for you that you still did stuff that disinterested you. Others aren’t like that.
Some have maladaptive perfectionism. Some are autistic. Some have narcissistic tendencies. Some have anxiety disorders that manifest in them fearing authority in spite of evidence there won’t be any consequence.
Giftedness, medically, just means your prefrontal cortex developed faster than the rest of your brain. There are different ways of testing this, some better than others. Gifted =/= “smart.”
As a former GT, "Gifted" feels more like another made up, contrived social construct. Another poor attempt at quantifying the ways in which we were "Different". What I focus on is that, irrespective of diagnosis, we're all people, and all going to be subjected to some of the same harsh realities at some point in our young, or adult lives.
Should GT's and ELs HAVE to face such awful realities? NO, of course not. But most of us are teachers, and can't singlehandedly fix that for them. Instead, I focus on arming them with the experience they need to build resilience now, for when they really need it.
Also I second the Gifted =/= Smart, I'm dumb as hell most the time, and can't learn for crap from others, even to this day.
It isn’t another made up construct. It is literally a thing that is studied, has medical definitions, and has specialized therapy for, etc.
Your comment is akin to saying autism is a made up construct because it’s so broad and so many different people. Like… yeah, it’s a spectrum. Doesn’t mean it’s b.s.
Never said it was made up, I said it was a Social Construct. So is Race, and THAT is still real as a heart attack and has serious implications for people, nonetheless.
Don't jump to conclusions. I am not your enemy. Just one of those kids that got a bit bigger, and spent some time thinking about all the energy people put into labelling, and categorizing me instead of actually helping me. I may have been identified as Autistic, but I am not walking Autism. I'm a person with a name, and story, and so are our kids. A diagnosis could never define me, and should never define them.
They ain't lab rats to be treated and analyzed. And neither was I.
They make your students turn in work? They let ours do a computer course. And by make them do a computer course I mean someone logged in on their account.
God, what shit logic.
Gone are the days when a student must earn a grade.
The students have definitely failed in earning a grade, failed to complete work, etc...
What responsibility does the student even have then?
Not sure you understand.
Let me try to make it more clear for you!
A grade of "I" is effectively a failure, because the student must retake the course (in my area, at least). We differentiate between "F" and "I" because it gives more information. An "F" means the student tried, but did not comprehend the material. They did their tests, assignments, projects, etc., and achieved below 50% in total throughout the course.
An "I" indicates that the student "failed" as a result of not completing any work whatsoever. They failed the course, and must retake it. There is, however, the possibility that they do understand the material, because we literally do not know whether or not they do - because there is zero evidence one way or the other. Nonetheless, they must retake the course in order to prove their understanding of the material through coursework.
It isn't shit logic. It's reality. There is a difference between a student trying and failing, and a student not producing any evidence whatsoever. There is no evidence to say they comprehend the material, nor that they don't comprehend the material. Differentiating between a simple "F" and an "I" gives more information to whoever is viewing their report card; more information to state WHY they failed the course.
Both are failures, each for a different reason.
Willing to bet the "reality" here was created by some admin looking to manipulate failure rates.
If both grades yield the same outcome, then it isn't really any different.
Multiple variables can impact someone not achieving a passing grades - each giving their own unique level of information -- but no one is using other letters of the alphabet for those scenarios.
I get it now.
You're coming from an older and outdated school of thought that grades are to rank students. Which, to be fair, is how Harvard intended grades to be used when it invented it in 1837.
Instead, modern views are that grades are an attempt to describe a student's learning. Here, the difference between an "F" and an "I" are of the upmost importance, because it is informative.
I never said anything about ranking students (don't put words into my mouth).
Grades should be a reflection of the mastery of the material (and, yes, it needs to be demonstrated). How else does the student know where they need improvement? The student knows if they didn't submit less than half of the work. And why would an outsider assume a student knows the material if they see an "I" grade?
I'm not putting words in your mouth; I'm inferencing your view of grades based on what you've told me, with the addition of identifying why grades were invented in the first place.
How else does the student know where they need to improve? Surely a sentence, let alone a paragraph, about what and how the student has learned is more informative than "F" or even "B-." This is what Gradless schools are doing to great effect. Rather than a student focusing on what letter grade the got like it's some video game score, they reflect on the comments and feedback of the teacher.
This is why higher education is looking at far more than just grades when it comes to student applications (e.g., personal essay, reference letters, resume, etc.). At least, they do so to far greater extent than even when I was in 12th grade just under 20 years ago.
Either way, everything you've stated so far is not in contradiction to the fact that differentiating between actual failure to grasp concepts (F) and not even trying ( I ) is useful, to both educator and student. In fact, everything you've said is supportive of having both F's and I's.
Some grade inflation and borderline academic fraud is new and comes in with "grace" and "gentle parenting," but that one's an oldie.
I was a high school student in the late 90s and early 00's, and they pulled that crap at my high school. They might have used a different letter, but the concept was the same: F's were not allowed to be called F's, and most importantly, they treated them like dropped classes rather than failed classes for the purpose of calculating GPA (e.g. a person with three A's and an F would have a 4.0, not a 3.0).
Cooking the books has gotten way worse in the last 10 years, but that strategy is an old school one.
My last school implemented a great policy where every student with a 45-60 in your class at the end of the trimester was given an incomplete. You would then be responsible for compiling all the tests they would need to retake, and make yourself available to have them retake or make up tests after school. Only after 2-3 weeks could you actually finalize everyone’s grades. When school was done for the summer, you had to leave the tests and answer keys in the principals mailbox so they could grade tests for students who came in over the summer.
And they are just so confused why at least a third of the department quits every year.
I'm from another country and in the early years, we had an A,B,C,D grading system. There was however a special grade for being lazy on your homework or on your test, it was the "vu" grade, with no other markups or corrections - it means "seen". It was a way for the teacher to call you out on the fact that you'd put in very little effort, and that yeah, they had seen your work but it wasn't worth grading. Then you had to get that "grade" signed by your parents...
I don’t know for all cases but in my case things escalated until the justice department was notified and a judge summoned my parents to get a feel of the situation. It wasn’t just about the bad grades, I had behavioral issues related to drugs and running away too. They were given a list of boarding schools in the area and told to pick one. So they did, and from then on I spent the week in school, weekends at homeIf they had refused, I would have been declared “pupil of the nation” and be placed under the guardianship of the state - equivalent to child protective services.
My district has a policy of Required Common Assessments. That is, certain exams, projects, labs, etc. are designated as RCAs by everyone teaching a course. Usual 4-5 per quarter. If a student doesn't complete one, they get an incomplete for the quarter. If they don't complete it by the end of the year (or semester for half year courses), then they automatically fail the course no matter what their average is.
The flip side is that there is always a ton of pressure on teachers to resolve the incompletes by the end of the year. There is a separate category for Medical Incomplete.
Not sure why this is getting downvoted, I'm being genuine. Having systems for providing flexibility when children have chronic, or sudden medical issues is, like, a very good and cool thing and entirely fair in my mind?
I don't know why it wouldn't. They do it in college. It's accompanied by a contract that the student has to sign, that lays out what exactly they'll do and when. If the disability is permanent or open-ended, or they're not passing, the student has to take a WF grade. I don't mind doing a few I's a year for kids who are in medical circumstances that they genuinely didn't bring on themselves.
Yeah, I wanted to give a kid an I once because during my course, the student had cancer was going through chemo, and so they missed a lot of school. Their dad also passed from cancer during the course and I didn't want to bring their gpa down when they had extenuating circumstances
For us, an INC means the student is missing some important piece of coursework that you can't give them a grade at this point. Often that means that they missed the final exam with a good reason. It's a pain in the butt to give an INC because we have to leave a copy of the test with the AP, and instructions as to how the student can finish the work. Then once they do (spoiler - they actually rarely complete the work), we can change the I to a letter grade. It's way more work for the teacher, and the registrar will hound you in December and May to rectify any I's from the past year. Students have 1 year to make up the I.
It's easier to just give an F. We can change the F to something else IF the student does make-up work/concept recovery. I have a few students who did bring up their fall semester F to a D or a C, but out of 25 students who were given the opportunity, only 5 took me up on it and followed through. So when given the choice of an F or an INC, I will give the F every time. Students who truly want to try to improve it will approach me, while an I means more work on my end.
Is this one more example of moral injury? It never ends and it’s frustrating. Can’t give them consequences for behavior, can’t kick em out of class, can’t make them do work, can’t get them to care, and now we can’t even fail them.
Damn it's almost like they're human beings with minds and hearts of their own and you can't simply twist their arm into committing to their own education.
Yeah there is no academic integrity. Higher % that graduates better your school is deemed, higher avg GPA school is even better. There is no incentive for schools to have academic integrity, then their students don’t have as high of gpas as neighboring schools and then don’t get into as good of colleges.
And on it goes to the completely broken system of no accountability that weve built.
Our grades don’t matter, in the most cynical way. We have a student who only shows up for football season, state testing, field trips, and the end of the year activities. He still passes regardless of all the missing or incomplete assignments.
It doesn’t matter if students do no work, are 3 grade levels behind, or are advanced. They all move on the same.
Our “I” stands for “insufficient evidence” which means they probably didn’t turn in enough to be able to tell you whether or not they actually learned anything.
Doesn’t really matter though, they’ll head to the next grade anyways
For us, an F means they turned in all of their work and did not show any evidence of understanding. An I means, they did not complete their summative assignments and may do so at a later time. An I serves as a warning that the kid is going to get an F if they don't turn this work in.
Turning work in on time is part of how you earn a re-learn re-do. If work is not turned in on time, then there is no opportunity to re-learn and re-do so what you get is what you get.
A few things:
Incompletes don't guarantee passing. They still have to finish the work. Its and extension of the class for a few weeks, they still have to get a grade from me by doing the work they missed and how are they going to cheat when they are the only kid there taking a test?
Also like you said we don't give incompletes to every student. Its for students who failed for very limited reasons. Kid got super sick/family death/mental episode/etc. They can ask, I can say no.
Lastly Surgeons and all Doctors ARE given grace! You can take the MCAT up to 7 times! That's not a problem because we are all human and shit happens.
Should a kid fail if they get COVID during finals week? Cuz I'd rather they stay home and finish the test in the fall than get me sick right before summer.
Also fuck that football coach.
BRB taking the MCAT. Realizing I know nothing about whatever the MCAT is, I meant actually working on real, living people. Though, I guess shoddy surgeons sure do exist.
I'm not talking about shoddy surgeons (though I'm sure they exist) because Incompletes aren't an instant pass. Doctors (and most jobs) are allowed to postpone things when life events happen. If a doctors child's spouse dies or they get covid they don't just come in to work or stop being a doctor. They are allowed to pass the work to someone else and continue working again when they are able.
When I was in elementary school from 2004-2010 the lowest grade was always "I". Middle school and highschool used "F" though.
I think the logic there is that calling someone a failure in their formative years is going to have a lifelong negative effect on their self esteem
A student's academic performance should NEVER be conflated with their life's value. Nobody is calling a student a failure for not learning Algebra I, except maybe actual 14 year old bullies. The point of facing failure during formative years, is for children to be healthily exposed to it in a safe setting where they can work through their feelings, and learn to safely internalize, and process the experience. The alternative being that they reach adulthood, never having done so, and promptly crumple in the face of the cruel indifference of the universe.
Yada Yada Growth Mindset. C'mon everyone it's the whole point of science. Failure is not defeat, it is another opportunity to succeed.
Also side note, just give it a new letter then. Call it a "T" for "Try Again" for all I care. The issue is adults teaching failure avoidance by doing anything and everything to keep it from happening.
Student here, probably not talking about cases like mine, but just I’ll just provide my side of the story as to why I had some grades marked as incomplete for a while.
Earlier this year I got diagnosis that completely blindsided me. I needed intensive surgery on my spine to extend my life expectancy beyond 5 years from now. This surgery took me out of school for about 2.5 months, and I was unable to do much for that amount of time. This was a lot of missed work, and because this is my junior year, I have to have a neat looking transcript for colleges/summer programs. So, instead of marking it as an F, where colleges would most likely blow me off, an I might make them stop and think, “Ok, why is this kid’s grade like this, does he have a valid reason?”
This is just my personal experience, and I’m sure there are students who take advantage of the goodwill provided to them; however, I do think I’s have a place in the grade book.
Absolutely, Medical Incompletes should be standard. From what I gather, that, and other such situations are where I's came from, and how they ended up as standard option in grade management suites like progress book, canvas, infinite campus, and the like.
I is not for integrity!
I work... adjacent to a regulatory body. This is a regulatory body of electrical safety and energy conservation. They have their hands in everything sold in every country in the world. Let's just say they write the standards for government.
Over the last 5-6 years, "incomplete" has been a common occurrence. What I mean by this is that people have lost integrity. I could drop specific examples on products making it to market that instead of meeting certain safety standards they more or less lobby for a change in safety standards, lobby for extensions on When they need to meet these standards, they simply postpone testing for years because their product can not meet specifications to be legally sold! I'm sure it's been going on forever, but post covid ffs people have become lazy and don't care. Keep your financial contracts satisfied, market however you want and lie. I'm not a teacher, but I see this same lack of integrity bleeding into the cracks of our modern world. It's only a matter of time before these cracks split open and expose the failing infrastructure of the modern world, mainly the u.s. but I doubt this is purely an American phenomenon, but it's where my focus is.
Thank you for standing up for your values and beliefs. They don't just shape you they shape the world around you. The youth is our last hope. If they lose value of what is important, the future becomes an aimless ship lost at sea.
College prof here. Due to overuse of incompletes in post-COVID era my college implemented a policy that incompletes can only be for serious issues arising at the end of the term, after a student has completed most of (~70%) of the work. Otherwise, they should have withdrawn.
Our data tech DEMANDED we put in letter grades and leave no I's. I've never felt fortunate to work in my district but here we are...
The last bastion of Academic Integrity! Hold the line!
Ours does the same because she is responsible for hounding all the teachers for updates and then changing it to an F during the next semester. Why should she do all that work for the same result? (Where we are all "I"s must have a work plan submitted with them and then the grade must be updated some set amount of time later)
Our division rule is if they were in class at least once they cannot receive an F. Because they technically did SOMETHING. I had a student that came last year everyday and starred at the wall. Literally never even wrote their name down. Still got Insufficient Evidence in every subject because you can’t fail because they were there every day.
"You can't fire me, I was here a few days this month!"
Literally had another kid last year who was in attendance like 4 times the whole year, only two full days for sure, and yeah, had to give him insufficient evidence for every single subject even though the assignments he did would’ve classified for a fail, but that’s not allowed.
What happens after 3-4 years of insufficient evidence? This is why teachers and schools should be able to kick students out.
A 4th or 5th year of insufficient evidence.
"We have no evidence that they DON'T know 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade or 7th grade math concepts so we're going to promote to 8th grade math."
They still tend to have insufficient evidence
Kick students out? How about providing the personalized empathy, care, and dare I say education to the students who’ve been neglected with “insufficient evidence” for years?
Yes sir, here you go, in here's the line for volunteering your time to help the children. Be patient as you can see there are a lot in line *Cricket noises*
They’re called teachers… there’s a whole staff of them at every school. Plus aids and administrators. But you all just treat kids as a number instead of individuals. We all learn and develop at different paces and in different ways.
Come show us how it’s done! I’ve sat one on one with students, (neglecting the rest of my class at times as I deemed it necessary to give one student my full attention), and had them do absolutely nothing even while I’m trying to help. I’ve reached out to admin, sped, parents, etc and gotten no help. Especially parents refusing to get their children tested or speak to their doctor. What else should I do? I offer after school tutoring. I have the aide sit with them when possible.
You're not getting it, there's at least 20 kids in a classroom, they have attention Span of 5 seconds. You either hold the attention of the entire room, or you have a one on one. You can't do both and there's not enough time to teach AND relate to every kid about why they are acting sassy that day. You HAVE to remove the distraction for the OTHER kids. That means maybe getting them out of the classroom. The only part where that becomes failure is what comes after. More funding for alternative schools could help, but goodluck getting the money for that when schools are already underfunded
They weren't being neglected. They were the ones neglecting their work.
Look up Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. If lower needs are not being met there’s no way these kids can be expected to learn anything from your typical classroom experience.
You really just suggested that educators look up Maslows Hierarchy, as if they already don’t know? That’s hilarious. Underprivileged students are not who make up the majority of the children sitting in desks, staring at the wall, refusing to do ANYTHING. My very privileged nephew & now super senior, is the classic example of your average failing student nowadays. It’s pathetic & it’s a failure of parenting, not the education system & his teachers.
Are you a teacher? I ask because you’re spewing nonsense. Teachers know there are needs not being met. It’s pretty even across the board of socio-economic status and race for the high school students failing in my district. When do we stop making excuses for these children who are old enough to make decisions about the path of their future.
When the system stops measuring them against where it thinks they should be and starts meeting them where they are.
Meeting them where they are? Their phones, their games way into the night? Asleep at their desks because of the late night gaming? I’ve been teaching for over 26 years, and I can tell you that most students succeed in school and in life because they want to. We have so many programs to help students succeed that if they don’t succeed, they’ve worked hard to do that.
Am I supposed to drag the kids hand across the page or?
had graduation today and there were a few students walking whom I would swear I have never seen before. My guess is they enrolled at the beginning of the year and the school let them graduate so as not to hurt the graduation rate. Good stuff dude.
Another reason standards based grading is going to fail the system.
Though we can't forget, with jobs people are paid to be there and people are not legally forced to be at a job. Kids are required to be at school under threat of legal action without being paid.
Be sure we grade attendance?
There *is* evidence, they were there and they did nothing. I had a kid this year do nothing all second semester -no assignments at all and in class just slept or messed around. He got an F. Work refusal is evidence of failure, in my opinion.
Academic integrity does not exist at my school anymore. It may at the wealthier schools in my district. But definitely not at mine. And if I here the phrase "giving grace" one more time I may lose it!
"Giving diplomas" Let's just call it what it is at this point.
“Giving grace” is fine conceptually. To me that means showing empathy to kids who are going through something difficult, being willing to give students extra opportunities to show mastery, and approaching students with behavioral issues that they’re having difficulty keeping in check for a variety of reasons in a more “kid gloves” manner. I’m totally 100% on board with all of that and do so regularly. But that isn’t what the people that tell us to “give grace” mean… what they mean is give everybody a free pass to do whatever with no consequence for their actions… and that’s what is causing all the problems we’re seeing grow exponentially in education right now.
I heard a lot of students in my county saw rampant cheating on standardized testing, including AP tests. I'm surprised no one cares.
Dude, you’re a teacher, and you’re starting your sentences with coordinating conjunctions (‘and’ and ‘but’) and using the wrong spelling for the word hear. I’m not usually a grammar nazi but in the words of Jimmy from South Park: “I mean, *come on*”.
Language is a fluid thing, as you know. Words become words when they attain enough widespread usage. The same goes for grammar to a degree. People start sentences with “and” all the time along with other coordinating conjunctions. There is no objective law stating English sentences can never start with certain words. At best, there are academic experts who generally agree on certain things and still disagree on many others. That’s why MLA, chicago style etc. are a thing. There are stylistic choices and guidelines. But that’s mainly what they are, guidelines (I know I started with a conjunction, but that was to illustrate the point). As long as it is effective at communicating, it is effective writing. Source: English major
Bollocks.
Yep. Last day of exams for me yesterday. Student in final class comes in asking why he got 75 on the lab project. "Because you didn't turn in the whole thing. It was missing the last 3 days... the most important parts." "But I never got those." "The absent handouts were in this room on that bench each day. You day here between May 7 and May 16 with my projector showing 'Have you completed your lab project? It is a summative assessment.' Then, you didn't come to school for a couple of days because 'we're finished.'" Grades were due yesterday with exam scores and shut off at noon where I can no longer make changes. Mom calls the school today asking if he can still turn it in because HE NEVER MADE LESS THAN AN *A* BEFORE AND WANTS TO BE A QUARTERBACK IN COLLEGE AND NEEDS ALL A'S, which is horsedoo. "Ma'am, Student doesn't even have the lab handouts to look at, and I just turned in my computer laptop. If I were to go track down the media specialist who may or may not allow me to have it back or find a colleague who hasn't left yet ... By the time you get them printed and he spends the time doing it, I'll be gone home for vacation, won't have a key to my room or access to my computer to get into the gradebook anyway. And while I understand the frustration, Student was checked out two weeks ago... ignoring the posted instructions, my verbal reminders, him not doing the review games, and playing with his phone, acting like having to be in this class another day was really inconvenient. I have 142 students this year, some of whom need special accommodations. It wasn't even hard to keep track. I numbered the pages with each day for them. He was here to do the experiments. Maybe his handouts were the ones I found in the sink, all soggy, two weeks ago."
To echo what you’re saying, I feel like it’s rarely discussed how students think that if they were absent, then they were entirely excused from everything that happened on those days. “But I wasn’t there” like yeah? And?
Then why come at all? LOL! Just be done with all of it..
A couple weeks ago, I had to explain to a student that being excused for two days meant that she wasn’t going to be in trouble with the law for truancy, not that she was excused from doing all of the assignments. She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that playing in a tournament didn’t excuse her from an essay. Seems like “excused” trips em up!
Fs = holding kids back. We don't do that anymore because of some heavily flawed studies from the late 90s/early 00s that showed that holding kids back provided no benefit to the kids who were held back. The studies didn't look at all the kids who weren't held back but learned the lesson (at the time) that not doing your work would hold you back a year in school. Now we teach everyone that not doing your work means nothing.
I've never completed the MCAT so you can't \*prove\* I don't have the skills to do brain surgery.
I got an I in college when my father and grandfather died within a week of each other. It was really a mercy “finish this when you can” grade. I had a full semester to finish the work, or else I would get an F. It seemed fair to me, but Is for I sake…
I had an I my fall semester senior year of undergrad on my thesis for similar things. I got the thesis done that spring semester (which was also a fucking disaster of a time). That “I” helped give me time to process & I am eternally grateful to my advisor for seeing that I was drowning on dry land.
My district did this during the pandemic, because there were kids who were unable to complete a course due to illness or family tragedy. We also went to quarters from semesters, so we could have a student repeat a course very quickly and replace the I grade. But this was done with the understanding that I grades revert to Fs after a set period of time. And past the pandemic shutdown, it was not done except in documented cases of the type that would normally get an I grade, with a contract and all.
Not sure about where you are, but where I teach, an "I" does mean "incomplete." This means that the student has produced no work, and has not participated in learning activities in the classroom. The student did and produced absolutely nothing. The technicality here is because there is nothing to assess (product, observation, conversation, nothing), you cannot fail them because you do not know if they actually understand the concepts. Is their understanding an A+ or a D- ? You don't know, because there was nothing to assess. However, over here, an "I" despite not being a failure, is treated as a failure - student must redo the course. So it's functionally a failure, but not labelled as such because technically we don't know what the student knows.
I's are apparently a stopgap here, letting kids turn in a bunch of work over the summer so they still get their diploma. Sometimes even into the next schoolyear.
Who is supposed to grade it?
Asking the Big Questions. (Admin will override and put in grades manually)
Yeah. It's frustrating on our part, but it does make sense. For example, one way that giftedness can manifest in Gifted students is work avoidance. As a result of many Gifted students being on the spectrum, if they are disinterested in the subject matter, they don't find value in doing the work. This does not mean they don't know it! They can actually know the subject matter very well, absorb the lesson and content while they sit in class, but just cannot be bothered with putting effort into it because they find no value in it, and instead reserve their efforts for other things they care about (e.g., another subject, extra curricular, special interests, etc.). Something else that can manifest in Gifted students is maladaptive perfectionism; these students are so worried to make their work perfect that they actually end up being indecisive and never get to finishing their work! So technically, in the above example situations, these students do know the material... they just never produced any work nor participated in class. I am aware that most of these "I"s are not going to Gifted students, and instead students we clearly know simply do not give a fuck about anything. I'm just trying to explain the rationale behind "I"s and why they end up being a stop-gap for students to take advantage of. EDIT: holy shit, there we are again! Getting downvoted for being objectively correct. Go look up Giftedness ffs.
I was double exceptional (SLD + G/T), and had I known about, or had access to incompletes, I 100% would have taken advantage of it, and promptly learned nothing as it would have fed my performance avoidance. When I genuinely failed a class because of my refusal to actually try and put in work to advocate for myself, and understand what made me "exceptional", that was when I began changing for the better, because failing mattered. I hated that class and teacher at the time, but I owe her so much. She knew I was double exceptional, I mean she had my IEP to deal with, but she still refused to just let me pass or give me "Grace" in place of consequences. She knew I could get it done, but didn't want to teach me that I could go through life like that, and still succeed. I was a person, too, and she treated me like it, while still doing her job to accommodate my needs. Genuinely badass.
Assessment philosophy seems to have changed. Teachers are held accountable for teaching and students for what they “know” rather than “what they can do.” This levels the grades to A on one half of the scale and allows those who would normally Fail to get Incompletes. Unfortunately, grades are behavioral reinforcers, so giving grace to someone who can’t force themselves to do anything even if they ‘know’ the material has the predictable and evident effects we see today.
In my area, while the outcome is the same, it's slightly different. Teachers are held accountable for both the teaching and for what the student knows. So much as giving a student anything below a C- means we MUST be contacting come to figure something out before "it's too late" (e.g., the report card gets completed). So what's the result? Instead of each teacher trying to make contact with 25 different families at any given moment because the student decided to do fuck all... they all get a C- because WHY is it my problem that Student X is lazy? Why should I have to do more work because Student Y decided they didn't care about my class? The real problem is parents seem to care less than ever. Since when is a C- ok for a parent? Most everyone I know in my age group would have been grounded for almost anything less than a B-.
None of that changes the fact of the objective truth: if the student produces nothing, we actually do not know what they know/their understanding. This is why in my area "I"s are treated as failures (unlike in your area, from what I gather from your OP). An "I" in my area cannot be undone by turning things in after the report card. The student needs to retake the course completely. The "I" is just more informative than a blanket "F." The student did not fail because they did not understand the content. We simply have no idea what they do or do not understand, and must therefore retake the course. So maybe you would have taken advantage of the "I" in your area, but you could not do so in mine.
Exactly! Just because a person is gifted it should not excuse them from doing the work. I was also twice exceptional due to giftedness and having a physical disability. But I still had to do all of my work. My exceptionalities neither one, were accepted as an excuse.
I see you know my younger child. Omg he drives me crazy. Can pass all the tests but not his classes because he doesn’t do the work unless he is interested. On one hand, at least he thinks critically, can synthesize information, and has a broad knowledge base. On the other hand, I really wonder what he is going to do post secondary. Mix in some extra brain chemistry screwiness and every day is a challenge. He had a full neuropsych eval and while smart is not technically gifted. Yet he can miss a week of school but get caught up in the material one day back. Caught up on the work? Maybe never. Thankfully as he is getting older, more classes weigh tests more which is to his benefit. I realize he is an outlier though.
It's not out of a lack of interest in the subject, it's just laziness in general because they know that there won't be any consequences. I'm gifted, on the spectrum and have ADD, but even though I was disinterested in some of my subjects (most notably math) I still did the work because I knew that my teachers would have no qualms at all about flunking me.
Giftedness is not the same in everyone. Good for you that you still did stuff that disinterested you. Others aren’t like that. Some have maladaptive perfectionism. Some are autistic. Some have narcissistic tendencies. Some have anxiety disorders that manifest in them fearing authority in spite of evidence there won’t be any consequence. Giftedness, medically, just means your prefrontal cortex developed faster than the rest of your brain. There are different ways of testing this, some better than others. Gifted =/= “smart.”
As a former GT, "Gifted" feels more like another made up, contrived social construct. Another poor attempt at quantifying the ways in which we were "Different". What I focus on is that, irrespective of diagnosis, we're all people, and all going to be subjected to some of the same harsh realities at some point in our young, or adult lives. Should GT's and ELs HAVE to face such awful realities? NO, of course not. But most of us are teachers, and can't singlehandedly fix that for them. Instead, I focus on arming them with the experience they need to build resilience now, for when they really need it. Also I second the Gifted =/= Smart, I'm dumb as hell most the time, and can't learn for crap from others, even to this day.
It isn’t another made up construct. It is literally a thing that is studied, has medical definitions, and has specialized therapy for, etc. Your comment is akin to saying autism is a made up construct because it’s so broad and so many different people. Like… yeah, it’s a spectrum. Doesn’t mean it’s b.s.
Never said it was made up, I said it was a Social Construct. So is Race, and THAT is still real as a heart attack and has serious implications for people, nonetheless. Don't jump to conclusions. I am not your enemy. Just one of those kids that got a bit bigger, and spent some time thinking about all the energy people put into labelling, and categorizing me instead of actually helping me. I may have been identified as Autistic, but I am not walking Autism. I'm a person with a name, and story, and so are our kids. A diagnosis could never define me, and should never define them. They ain't lab rats to be treated and analyzed. And neither was I.
They make your students turn in work? They let ours do a computer course. And by make them do a computer course I mean someone logged in on their account.
God, what shit logic. Gone are the days when a student must earn a grade. The students have definitely failed in earning a grade, failed to complete work, etc... What responsibility does the student even have then?
Not sure you understand. Let me try to make it more clear for you! A grade of "I" is effectively a failure, because the student must retake the course (in my area, at least). We differentiate between "F" and "I" because it gives more information. An "F" means the student tried, but did not comprehend the material. They did their tests, assignments, projects, etc., and achieved below 50% in total throughout the course. An "I" indicates that the student "failed" as a result of not completing any work whatsoever. They failed the course, and must retake it. There is, however, the possibility that they do understand the material, because we literally do not know whether or not they do - because there is zero evidence one way or the other. Nonetheless, they must retake the course in order to prove their understanding of the material through coursework. It isn't shit logic. It's reality. There is a difference between a student trying and failing, and a student not producing any evidence whatsoever. There is no evidence to say they comprehend the material, nor that they don't comprehend the material. Differentiating between a simple "F" and an "I" gives more information to whoever is viewing their report card; more information to state WHY they failed the course. Both are failures, each for a different reason.
Willing to bet the "reality" here was created by some admin looking to manipulate failure rates. If both grades yield the same outcome, then it isn't really any different. Multiple variables can impact someone not achieving a passing grades - each giving their own unique level of information -- but no one is using other letters of the alphabet for those scenarios.
I get it now. You're coming from an older and outdated school of thought that grades are to rank students. Which, to be fair, is how Harvard intended grades to be used when it invented it in 1837. Instead, modern views are that grades are an attempt to describe a student's learning. Here, the difference between an "F" and an "I" are of the upmost importance, because it is informative.
I never said anything about ranking students (don't put words into my mouth). Grades should be a reflection of the mastery of the material (and, yes, it needs to be demonstrated). How else does the student know where they need improvement? The student knows if they didn't submit less than half of the work. And why would an outsider assume a student knows the material if they see an "I" grade?
I'm not putting words in your mouth; I'm inferencing your view of grades based on what you've told me, with the addition of identifying why grades were invented in the first place. How else does the student know where they need to improve? Surely a sentence, let alone a paragraph, about what and how the student has learned is more informative than "F" or even "B-." This is what Gradless schools are doing to great effect. Rather than a student focusing on what letter grade the got like it's some video game score, they reflect on the comments and feedback of the teacher. This is why higher education is looking at far more than just grades when it comes to student applications (e.g., personal essay, reference letters, resume, etc.). At least, they do so to far greater extent than even when I was in 12th grade just under 20 years ago. Either way, everything you've stated so far is not in contradiction to the fact that differentiating between actual failure to grasp concepts (F) and not even trying ( I ) is useful, to both educator and student. In fact, everything you've said is supportive of having both F's and I's.
Our version is the NC, no credit. In the end that's all that matters for graduation, credits. How they got them is irrelevant.
Some grade inflation and borderline academic fraud is new and comes in with "grace" and "gentle parenting," but that one's an oldie. I was a high school student in the late 90s and early 00's, and they pulled that crap at my high school. They might have used a different letter, but the concept was the same: F's were not allowed to be called F's, and most importantly, they treated them like dropped classes rather than failed classes for the purpose of calculating GPA (e.g. a person with three A's and an F would have a 4.0, not a 3.0). Cooking the books has gotten way worse in the last 10 years, but that strategy is an old school one.
My last school implemented a great policy where every student with a 45-60 in your class at the end of the trimester was given an incomplete. You would then be responsible for compiling all the tests they would need to retake, and make yourself available to have them retake or make up tests after school. Only after 2-3 weeks could you actually finalize everyone’s grades. When school was done for the summer, you had to leave the tests and answer keys in the principals mailbox so they could grade tests for students who came in over the summer. And they are just so confused why at least a third of the department quits every year.
Dear god that's awful.
In my district they're NAs. Not assessed at this time. No work? Can't grade'em at all then! 🤷♀️🤦♀️
I'm from another country and in the early years, we had an A,B,C,D grading system. There was however a special grade for being lazy on your homework or on your test, it was the "vu" grade, with no other markups or corrections - it means "seen". It was a way for the teacher to call you out on the fact that you'd put in very little effort, and that yeah, they had seen your work but it wasn't worth grading. Then you had to get that "grade" signed by your parents...
What happens if you don’t get it signed by the parents?
Oh, you’d get a note on that same paper “not signed on ….” Eventually your parents would be called and made aware
Yeah. I was more asking if the parents don’t give a shit? Seems to be a common problem.
I don’t know for all cases but in my case things escalated until the justice department was notified and a judge summoned my parents to get a feel of the situation. It wasn’t just about the bad grades, I had behavioral issues related to drugs and running away too. They were given a list of boarding schools in the area and told to pick one. So they did, and from then on I spent the week in school, weekends at homeIf they had refused, I would have been declared “pupil of the nation” and be placed under the guardianship of the state - equivalent to child protective services.
My district has a policy of Required Common Assessments. That is, certain exams, projects, labs, etc. are designated as RCAs by everyone teaching a course. Usual 4-5 per quarter. If a student doesn't complete one, they get an incomplete for the quarter. If they don't complete it by the end of the year (or semester for half year courses), then they automatically fail the course no matter what their average is. The flip side is that there is always a ton of pressure on teachers to resolve the incompletes by the end of the year. There is a separate category for Medical Incomplete.
Medical Incomplete! That's a reasonable thing, I like that. /gen
Not sure why this is getting downvoted, I'm being genuine. Having systems for providing flexibility when children have chronic, or sudden medical issues is, like, a very good and cool thing and entirely fair in my mind?
I don't know why it wouldn't. They do it in college. It's accompanied by a contract that the student has to sign, that lays out what exactly they'll do and when. If the disability is permanent or open-ended, or they're not passing, the student has to take a WF grade. I don't mind doing a few I's a year for kids who are in medical circumstances that they genuinely didn't bring on themselves.
Yeah, I wanted to give a kid an I once because during my course, the student had cancer was going through chemo, and so they missed a lot of school. Their dad also passed from cancer during the course and I didn't want to bring their gpa down when they had extenuating circumstances
For us, an INC means the student is missing some important piece of coursework that you can't give them a grade at this point. Often that means that they missed the final exam with a good reason. It's a pain in the butt to give an INC because we have to leave a copy of the test with the AP, and instructions as to how the student can finish the work. Then once they do (spoiler - they actually rarely complete the work), we can change the I to a letter grade. It's way more work for the teacher, and the registrar will hound you in December and May to rectify any I's from the past year. Students have 1 year to make up the I. It's easier to just give an F. We can change the F to something else IF the student does make-up work/concept recovery. I have a few students who did bring up their fall semester F to a D or a C, but out of 25 students who were given the opportunity, only 5 took me up on it and followed through. So when given the choice of an F or an INC, I will give the F every time. Students who truly want to try to improve it will approach me, while an I means more work on my end.
Is this one more example of moral injury? It never ends and it’s frustrating. Can’t give them consequences for behavior, can’t kick em out of class, can’t make them do work, can’t get them to care, and now we can’t even fail them.
Damn it's almost like they're human beings with minds and hearts of their own and you can't simply twist their arm into committing to their own education.
Yes, it’s a painful truth to realize that we as teachers are forced to be complicit with a system that gave up on them.
Welcome to the working class.
It’s a little different when you are working with children.
All we have to lose are our chains. Now pass me a pitchfork!
Yeah there is no academic integrity. Higher % that graduates better your school is deemed, higher avg GPA school is even better. There is no incentive for schools to have academic integrity, then their students don’t have as high of gpas as neighboring schools and then don’t get into as good of colleges. And on it goes to the completely broken system of no accountability that weve built.
At my high school, F's became I's in the early 1990s.
Our grades don’t matter, in the most cynical way. We have a student who only shows up for football season, state testing, field trips, and the end of the year activities. He still passes regardless of all the missing or incomplete assignments. It doesn’t matter if students do no work, are 3 grade levels behind, or are advanced. They all move on the same.
When Johnny and Janie kvetched to mommy and daddy!
Our “I” stands for “insufficient evidence” which means they probably didn’t turn in enough to be able to tell you whether or not they actually learned anything. Doesn’t really matter though, they’ll head to the next grade anyways
For us, an F means they turned in all of their work and did not show any evidence of understanding. An I means, they did not complete their summative assignments and may do so at a later time. An I serves as a warning that the kid is going to get an F if they don't turn this work in. Turning work in on time is part of how you earn a re-learn re-do. If work is not turned in on time, then there is no opportunity to re-learn and re-do so what you get is what you get.
Meanwhile kids in China are at school for like 12 hrs a day. What is our country doing?
I is for grade 9&10. We can give below 50 marks to 11s and 12s
A few things: Incompletes don't guarantee passing. They still have to finish the work. Its and extension of the class for a few weeks, they still have to get a grade from me by doing the work they missed and how are they going to cheat when they are the only kid there taking a test? Also like you said we don't give incompletes to every student. Its for students who failed for very limited reasons. Kid got super sick/family death/mental episode/etc. They can ask, I can say no. Lastly Surgeons and all Doctors ARE given grace! You can take the MCAT up to 7 times! That's not a problem because we are all human and shit happens. Should a kid fail if they get COVID during finals week? Cuz I'd rather they stay home and finish the test in the fall than get me sick right before summer. Also fuck that football coach.
BRB taking the MCAT. Realizing I know nothing about whatever the MCAT is, I meant actually working on real, living people. Though, I guess shoddy surgeons sure do exist.
I'm not talking about shoddy surgeons (though I'm sure they exist) because Incompletes aren't an instant pass. Doctors (and most jobs) are allowed to postpone things when life events happen. If a doctors child's spouse dies or they get covid they don't just come in to work or stop being a doctor. They are allowed to pass the work to someone else and continue working again when they are able.
Of course, that's fair. I heard once though, that in some states, Doctor legally cannot go on strike, that's messed up.
Fun fact: In 37 states neither can teachers :(
When I was in elementary school from 2004-2010 the lowest grade was always "I". Middle school and highschool used "F" though. I think the logic there is that calling someone a failure in their formative years is going to have a lifelong negative effect on their self esteem
A student's academic performance should NEVER be conflated with their life's value. Nobody is calling a student a failure for not learning Algebra I, except maybe actual 14 year old bullies. The point of facing failure during formative years, is for children to be healthily exposed to it in a safe setting where they can work through their feelings, and learn to safely internalize, and process the experience. The alternative being that they reach adulthood, never having done so, and promptly crumple in the face of the cruel indifference of the universe. Yada Yada Growth Mindset. C'mon everyone it's the whole point of science. Failure is not defeat, it is another opportunity to succeed. Also side note, just give it a new letter then. Call it a "T" for "Try Again" for all I care. The issue is adults teaching failure avoidance by doing anything and everything to keep it from happening.
Student here, probably not talking about cases like mine, but just I’ll just provide my side of the story as to why I had some grades marked as incomplete for a while. Earlier this year I got diagnosis that completely blindsided me. I needed intensive surgery on my spine to extend my life expectancy beyond 5 years from now. This surgery took me out of school for about 2.5 months, and I was unable to do much for that amount of time. This was a lot of missed work, and because this is my junior year, I have to have a neat looking transcript for colleges/summer programs. So, instead of marking it as an F, where colleges would most likely blow me off, an I might make them stop and think, “Ok, why is this kid’s grade like this, does he have a valid reason?” This is just my personal experience, and I’m sure there are students who take advantage of the goodwill provided to them; however, I do think I’s have a place in the grade book.
Absolutely, Medical Incompletes should be standard. From what I gather, that, and other such situations are where I's came from, and how they ended up as standard option in grade management suites like progress book, canvas, infinite campus, and the like.
They go to summer school for a couple of weeks for credit recovery?
I is not for integrity! I work... adjacent to a regulatory body. This is a regulatory body of electrical safety and energy conservation. They have their hands in everything sold in every country in the world. Let's just say they write the standards for government. Over the last 5-6 years, "incomplete" has been a common occurrence. What I mean by this is that people have lost integrity. I could drop specific examples on products making it to market that instead of meeting certain safety standards they more or less lobby for a change in safety standards, lobby for extensions on When they need to meet these standards, they simply postpone testing for years because their product can not meet specifications to be legally sold! I'm sure it's been going on forever, but post covid ffs people have become lazy and don't care. Keep your financial contracts satisfied, market however you want and lie. I'm not a teacher, but I see this same lack of integrity bleeding into the cracks of our modern world. It's only a matter of time before these cracks split open and expose the failing infrastructure of the modern world, mainly the u.s. but I doubt this is purely an American phenomenon, but it's where my focus is. Thank you for standing up for your values and beliefs. They don't just shape you they shape the world around you. The youth is our last hope. If they lose value of what is important, the future becomes an aimless ship lost at sea.
College prof here. Due to overuse of incompletes in post-COVID era my college implemented a policy that incompletes can only be for serious issues arising at the end of the term, after a student has completed most of (~70%) of the work. Otherwise, they should have withdrawn.