Mistakes in the Grade Book?

[Andtototoo]

Both of my kids have had quite a few instances of trouble with this over the past few years, particularly oldest DD. Our experience is it's all on the student to prove what is in dispute -- even w/ excellent teachers & strangely enough even with a placement/test out exam result where the counselor knew DD had taken & passed it and said so, yet the school had lost the results, didn't enter them in the computer & was trying to shift responsibility back onto DD. That was not a fun time as she was trying to wrap up her junior year, had all of her scheduling in place for senior year & if the school didn't get it's act together properly a student with a 4.0-plus GPA might wind up unable to graduate.

She also experienced a seriously sickening feeling in one day at her morning high school when she received exams back in two classes, both with teachers incorrectly marking & tallying her scores, resulting in C & D marks. Both from incredible teachers who immediately corrected their errors and apologized but yet had no idea how they could have messed up so badly. She wondered about the same thing happening when she received her end of year marks for exams that she wasn't able to have returned because school was out & by the time reports were received teachers were out for the summer. Luckily it didn't impact her final class grade, but it always bothered her because she was only uncertain of one answer on the whole test.

She has had a policy for years not to throw away any of her homework, class notes, quizzes or tests that get returned to them until the grades are "in permanent ink."

Ditto with us.

My dd kept on top of her grades. At least once every two weeks, she found substantial errors in the grades. She had a regular spot set aside in her calendar to go in early to prove to teachers what her grades really were. On at least one occasion, she had to go up the food chain because the teacher refused to correct the grade. She also found that a correct grade would mysteriously become wrong weeks/months after it was initially input, so she also checked back ALL of her grades at least once a month. She kept all of her returned work on hand until she got her final report card at the end of the year.

What was the most frustrating aspect of it was the total lack of any apologies, even when -- on more than one occasion -- her report card had to be reissued due to the errors.

Dd is still sure that the very poor grade she got on a final was incorrect. It was in a class she'd gotten straight As in and thought the final was easy, so was shocked to see her grade on the test and had a strong feeling it was a marking error. But when she went in to inquire about it, she was told that since school was closed for the summer, she was SOL. She's still angry about it, because it was such a poor grade it affected her class score, which affected her GPA. She said if she had to do it over again, she'd go back to the school the day after the test and demand to have her test returned to her.

 

[monsterkitty]

I am one of the crazy teachers who keeps an old, write the score down in the book with a pencil as well as put it in the grading program. I noticed last year that our new program was not averaging grades correctly so I brought it to the attention of the teacher in charge of training us on how to use the program. He told me it was my math that was wrong that the program could never be wrong.

A few weeks later, after a few parents had called other teachers about incorrect grades, they figured out the problem was the program and not the teachers. I got the last laugh when the trainer came and told me. That trainer is also my husband so I made him buy me dinner that night.

I have made mistakes when entering grades and I feel horrible about it when it happens. When you have 300 kids there will be mistakes.

 

[pandamom]

Yup, found lots of mistakes in the online grades over the years. Sometimes the teacher catches it (like last week when dd12 had a 48 on a Social Studies exam that dropped her from an A to C -- by the time she was able to talk to him he'd already corrected it to the 98 it was supposed to be) and other times dds have to bring it to the teacher's attention to have it fixed. dd14 had one back at the end of 6th grade that actually dropped her from an A to a B but since school had ended and it wasn't in a core subject I didn't try to get it fixed.

 

[ilovefh]

I have made mistakes when entering grades and I feel horrible about it when it happens. When you have 300 kids there will be mistakes.

Yea! And truth be told I'm not so stuck on myself that I don't admit to my mistakes! Really if I make a mistake I EXPECT a student or parent to call me on it! I'm only human! I even appreciate a student correcting me when I say the wrong word or add or multiply something wrong in a lesson, in an appropriate manner of course. I think it shows them no one is perfect and we all make mistakes.

Heck just yesterday I had a problem with the smart board lesson I had made. I could not get the rectangle and triangle to stay connected. They kept separating when I moved them. They laughed at me, I laughed at myself and we moved onto the whiteboard!

 

[spaceacewannabe]

I am one of the crazy teachers who keeps an old, write the score down in the book with a pencil as well as put it in the grading program. I noticed last year that our new program was not averaging grades correctly so I brought it to the attention of the teacher in charge of training us on how to use the program. He told me it was my math that was wrong that the program could never be wrong.

A few weeks later, after a few parents had called other teachers about incorrect grades, they figured out the problem was the program and not the teachers. I got the last laugh when the trainer came and told me. That trainer is also my husband so I made him buy me dinner that night.

I have made mistakes when entering grades and I feel horrible about it when it happens. When you have 300 kids there will be mistakes.

YES! This is another reason to check the scores. Our program also defaults to 100 point assignments---so if I am putting in a 5 point assignment and I forget to change it, everybody suddenly has an F. The computer is so much better than doing it by hand, and I love that parents instantly know how their children are doing (if they want to know), but sometimes by the end of the day I am not smarter than the computer.