In conversation with a Robinson Elementary School teacher today, I learned some very troubling news. The database that receives individual assignment scores and crunches them into final grades, was shut down on Sunday night.
So... What's the big deal? According to a prominent teacher with decades of experience, staff are normally allowed until "after school is out" to finish grading assignments and essays, and then adjust the grades. This year, however, teachers with hundreds of papers left to grade, were simply out of luck...never mind the students.
What if your child was gunning for the honor roll? Maybe he or she had, say, an 88 or 89% in Social Studies as of the 15th of June, and was waiting for the grading of 4 or 5 awesome assignments (with high point counts) to shoot that overall grade into an A? Tough luck.
As it happens, the teacher I spoke to said she had several kids "shooting for the honor roll," who will never make it thanks to the database shutdown.
An example database entry, below, shows a real Robinson Elementary School 3rd grader's Social Studies scores filed with SVUSD, as of June 24 (today). As you can see, the last time it was updated was on June 15, and several assignments have not had their scores recorded. The missing grades are also not highlighted in red, which would be the standard symbol for "the teacher never received it from the student to begin with." If this were the case, the grade would be entered as a 0. There are other subjects in the database, like Health and Technology, that simply have no scores at all.
According to the total at the bottom, the overall grade is an 88.82%--a B. But what if those missing assignments were as awesome as the student hoped? Then his or her score would be in the 90's and an A...definitely the difference between a spot on the honor roll podium...or not.
Is it just me, or does this seem like there could be quite a few students learning a terrible lesson this year? Work hard and turn in your work...but don't expect it to count?
1 | Landform Map | Summative | Assignments |
| | 100.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 2 | Santa Ana Mountains | Summative | Assignments |
| | 100.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 3 | The Lands of Orange County | Summative | Assignments |
| | 74.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 4 | Native Americans of Orange County | Summative | Assignments |
| | | | | | No | | |
| 5 | Juaneno Life | Summative | Assignments |
| | | | | | No | | |
| 6 | Juaneno Person Project | Summative | Assignments |
| | | | | | No | | |
| 7 | Juaneno Basket | Summative | Assignments |
| | 100.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 8 | Explorers Map | Summative | Assignments |
| | 90.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 9 | OC Seal | Summative | Assignments |
| | 90.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 10 | PB p.21-23 | Summative | Assignments |
| | 86.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 11 | PB p.24 | Summative | Assignments |
| | 90.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 12 | PB p.25 | Summative | Assignments |
| | 90.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 13 | PB p.26 | Summative | Assignments |
| | | | | | No | | |
| 14 | PB p.27 | Summative | Assignments |
| | 100.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 15 | PB p.28-29 | Summative | Assignments |
| | 87.00% | | | | Yes | | |
| 16 | PB p.39 | Summative | Assignments |
| | 100.00% | Incomplete | | | Yes | | |
| 17 | PB p.40-41 | Summative | Assignments |
| | 80.00% | | | | Yes | | |
|
| Assignments | 100.00% | 755.00 | 850 | 88.82% | |
| Total | | | | 88.82% | |
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