My school also had the “you have as many days to make-up the work as you missed” policy except that any work that was due the day of your illness must have been turned in when you return.
This policy never seemed unfair to me.
When was your son originally given this assignment? I am willing to bet money that this was not a one day assignment.
How many days was your son absent before presenting this assignment on Monday?
Let’s play devil’s advocate and say that the teacher gave the assignment on Thursday and it was due on Friday.
Your son was absent on Friday and gave his presentation on the next day he was in school, Monday. This is the same project that he would have presented on Friday had he been in school. To me it seems that he would have lost points had he presented on Friday because he did not have written notes (he would have still had his discussion notes in his head). Had he been at school on Friday, he would not have had the notes to support his presentation.
Testing for understanding…
Was the assignment that he do his presentation on Friday, get feedback and turn in his notes on Monday? If this was the assignment, then I think he should have been given until tuesday to turn in his notes.
Was the assignment that he turn in his notes, when he finished his presentation, meaning that if they both were due on Friday, that he should have had them both on Monday.
If your son had a clarifying question, to me, it would have made sense for him to ask the question at the time the assignment was given or on Thursday when he was in school in preparation to present on Friday.
If your son was trying to contact the teacher over the weekend, it seems like there was no intention for him to do the assignment or to be in school on Friday when it was originally due and he was doing the assignment over the weekend the last minute and now you and your husband are upset because the teacher is not at his beck and call. Mind you he had days to ask his questions during the course of the school day and get an answer.
Regarding being absent, what usually happens at our school is that the parent/student (usually the parent) sends an email to the teachers via jupiter grades and the GC first thing in the morning to say that the student will not be in school, and then ask questions about any work being missed that day. If this was a multiple day illness, parent would have sent an email on Wednesday saying Egbert is sick and will be out of school until monday. Could you please send us any assignments that need to be done?
The marking period grade won’t matter that much in the long run as long as he earns good marks that much. He is probably very upset right now, but the grade won’t even show up on his transcript once it gets averaged with the second marking period grade. It won’t “haunt him forever” like you said
You are ready to go over a teacher’s head and your son’s request to stay out for this? I agree with your son - let him handle it, or not. Let you son take this little setback and learn from it. So, he gets a B- instead of a B. In the long run, he’ll learn more from trying to resolve this issue on his own by talking to the teacher himself than you going over both their heads and “handling it.”
Shawn, it may very well show up for first semester, depending on the school policy.
I would give your son 2 options, 1) meet with the teacher by himself to get it resolved, 2) have you set up a meeting between the teacher, him and you to get it resolved. If he should decide to meet with the teacher by himself, you want him to write an email to the teacher and BCC you to confirm what was discussed at the meeting (good practice to always write up minutes after a meeting).
I have tried this a few times with my kids. It made sure they were telling the truth and it also gave them a chance to decide how they wanted to resolve it, but doing nothing was not a good option. If OP’s son thought it was really unfair then he would want to bring it to his teacher’s attention. I don’t agree with other posters who think OP and his kid should just let it go. When OP’s kid goes off to college, he will need to speak up for himself.
I’m a high school teacher who does answer emails over weekends. (I just responded to one.)
And, as a mom, I’m pretty understanding about kids who are out-- my daughter has had a brutal year and missed way too many days, and I’m stunned at the lack of understanding from one or two teachers. (And, yes, I’ve kept them appraised of her medical issues, the ER and doctor visits.)
But I still think your son dropped the ball here. If he had the notes in his head, then they should have been ready to hand in.
But, even more than that, he’s 15 or 16 years old. Let him learn to handle this sort of “not a big deal in the long run” issue on his own. Don’t embarrass him by charging to the rescue.
And before you ever think of going over a teacher’s head, consider speaking to the teacher first. It’s entirely possible that your son missed a detail somewhere along the way.
Where I worked, if a parent contacted a department chair or other administration…the first question would have been “have you spoken to the teacher about this?”
So, if you want to intervene .or your son does…start there.
@oldfort , the “make sure they were telling the truth” thing happened to me once with my younger daughter. Turns out she’d flat-out lied and mis-characterized what was going on with regards to the teacher. I came in for a teacher conference, mad as hell, and then literally deflated in my chair once I realized what was really going on.
Luckily I’m not an obstinately defensive person, and the teacher was pretty calm and collected, so once she said “this is what I’m seeing from my side” it became immediately obvious to me that my kid was trying to pull the wool over my eyes. I apologized to the teacher and asked for suggestions on how the teacher and I could improve communications to prevent another occurrence, and the rest of the year was uneventful from a parental/teacher point of view.
My kid was SO grounded. Like, more grounded than anyone had ever been grounded in the history of the world (this was middle school).
So, make sure you absolutely know what’s going on in the situation before you wade in to do battle.
we had a bizarre situation and it took every fiber of my being to NOT get involved…in the end my kid learned an important life lesson, so i’m glad I didn’t go in guns blazing.
our school had a month long block of standardized testing in which you were called out in alphabetical groups, rather than by class. evidently, one was supposed to be responsible for any work missed during this mandated testing and either it was never announced or my kid missed the memo (it was never announced, I promise). she was in the very first group of this newfangled scenario and ended up with a few zeros for not turning in work. she is an excellent student and always turns in homework…not a kid that slides or takes advantage.
the teacher was unsympathetic, unreasonable and would not accept “late” work no matter what my kid said.
as an adult, I found it completely absurd based on the circumstances and I have never heard of such a thing. my kid wasn’t on a field trip, wasn’t out sick, wasn’t skipping class…it was a mandatory school thing. I also have no idea how one would do these assignments in which you missed the lecture (it was a book discussion).
so the lesson to my kid was that “life isn’t fair”. it also taught her that she can advocate for herself, but just because she asks, it doesn’t meant it will happen. until this point, she assumed if she smiled and acted nice that people would do what she wanted them to…it was a pretty rude awakening for her.
sort of a good thing to know.
and fwiw, she now knows to make her business to ask for assignments to the point of being an annoyance if she is ever in that situation again.
Choose your battles. He’s only a sophomore. It’s just the beginning of the semester. It’s a B, or probably will be. Better to move on. He learned a lesson. That’s a good thing.
As an aside, we recently had a chat with DS#1 (can’t recall how it came up in conversation), about rigid deadlines for school assignments in HS. He talked about an incident where he had a paper due, no flexibility. He’d stayed up all night to tweak it and wasn’t feeling well, so DH drove him to school. En route DS got sick and barfed on the assignment. He showed up at school, went to the teacher and told her he had the assignment as required, and was happy to turn it in, but as soon as he did he was going back home as he was sick and had gotten sick on the paper. He asked her if she wanted the tainted paper or wanted him to print a clean copy and bring it in the next day. She opted for the latter.
In the end, the colleges only see the final year grade (or semester for a semester-long course), not the marking period grades or the final exam grades.
I went over the teachers head one time…but only after my kid went to the teacher and his guidance counselor…twice each.
He had an A in sophomore English, and his English teacher refused to recommend him for honors English in 11th grade. After the second round my kid did with the teacher and GC, I contacted the GC and politely asked if she would advocate on the kid’s behalf. She said NO. The reason the teacher gave was that he wasn’t well behaved, and she would only recommend well behaved kids for honors English.
That’s when I called the vice principal. It was solved VERY quickly…and he was put into 11th grade honors English. We didn’t care much about the teacher who was dismissed from the position at the end of that school year. The GC was angry, but so what?
Oh…and end of story…kid got a 5 on the AP English Literatire exam.
But he did try to deal with the teacher and his GC first.
I’m saying it again. Don’t assume all schools only report the final year grade. I see hundreds of transcripts. Nearly all show grades by semester, for full year courses. At least, in the US.
OP has a right to be concerned about the fairness. I just think this sort of thing is more serious when, say, it drops a grade from an A to a B, than one letter to a minus.
If she’s talking about one “marking period” within 2nd semester, then I do agree he has time to bring this up.
I don’t think this is a big deal. I would let it go.
As a professor, I try to check my school emails (now up to 3) in the evenings and on weekends. Students are working on things and I try to be as available as I can.
This past year, I implemented a “no late homework” policy, so I don’t accept late homework assignments for any reason. Students may think the policy is unfair, but they are not on this end of the stick. I am certainly not the only professor who has these rules.
While I still stick by everything I’ve said, I echo LF in the grade reporting thing. Around here, I’ve never heard of a school that ONLY has yearly grades. All semester grades are on the transcript whether it’s a semester or year long course.
Even if this is totally unjust, it’s still a good lesson for your son. Since the teacher has a history of not responding to emails, he should speak to her in person and ask: “What is the best way to contact you during the week?”
You should stay out of it. He’s at the age where he needs to learn to deal with this type of thing himself.
@thumper1 I’ve done the same thing-we had some recommendations that weren’t right based on the kids’ numbers, and the teacher’s excuse was “well this math is so hard, I thought she’d enjoy a break. She doesn’t seem very serious.”
Yeah, that’s when Dragon Mom came out. This was in 8th grade and it would have derailed her permanently from being able to take calculus on any level in high school. I still get mad just thinking about it. Enjoy a break, yeah right lady, why don’t YOU take a break from making ludicrously subjective recommendations.
Like I said-pick your battles.
I would advise you to separate your feelings about the teacher and how she handled this from your feelings about this particular grade. The grade part wouldn’t bother me. In fact, I’d probably be pretty unsympathetic to my son who didn’t take the time or make the effort to transcribe his notes from" his head" into writing. He should know better.
From what OP is describing though, the teacher’s attitude is enough to rankle. She should have responded or provided guidance before dinging him. For those who say the policy is that work is due on the day back, that also seems unnecessarily harsh and unrealistic. If a kid has battled a serious illness, and I’m including flu in this, he’s already fallen behind and hasn’t been able to work during the absence. It’s not a vacation, you know? IME, most teachers are sympathetic to this and do provide some time to schedule make up tests and to meet before papers or assignments are due. They hold their students to the same standards they hold themselves.
Having said all that, my advice is to feel the feelings and let it go. It’s your son’s issue, he has responsibility in this and frankly, the grade difference is not that important. He should pay careful attention to this teacher and the expectations of the class going forward. She sounds like a pain but it isn’t so extreme that it can’t be managed.