D1 entered high school during the pandemic and is having serious problems with her grades in Honors Bio. She is scoring A’s in everything and has been a stellar student otherwise. This bio teacher seems to be a particularly harsh grader where kids often get C- grades. She has reached out to her school counselor and was told to escalate to the STEM coordinator (which she has). The other Bio honors teachers are grading appropriately and kids with less effort and understanding are getting better score than the kids in my D1’s class.
What to do in such a situation?
Does the teacher have any help sessions? If so she should go every time. If not she should try to make an appointment.
Do they have any test “re-dos”?
Is anyone else doing well in her class? Can she study virtually with them?
Can she watch Khan Academy videos about any concepts?
Is she learning for recognition or for recall?
I agree that escalating to ensure that all teachers have the same standards is appropriate.
Thanks bopper.
She goes to office hours. If the teacher does answer a question for her, it is emailed to the entire class. Which is good for the kids, but a lot of times, there is no feedback or clarity on what is being graded. I have grad degrees in biology and I find the questions are unclear and sometimes even out of context.
She has tried to partner with one kid doing well in class. Apparently the kids’s older brother was in the same class and has stock answers. 
We are hoping that if her test grades improve for the rest of the three quarters, we can ask for a redo on first quarter.
Khan academy is a good option but the teacher is penalizing for word choices and his comments are garbled as to why. But I’ll have her review the material.
She is learning so that is good. But grades in high school matter especially if you are academically ambitious.
From what I hear, this is common in our high school. Not looking forward to another 4 years like this.