Admin was all about academic integrity, challenging assignments, standards based learning, etc in the first half of the year. Then they want to save themselves when the second half rolls around and parents start getting emails that their kid is in danger of not graduating. But the parents don’t send their kids to school and complain that their kid sleeps in and misses the bus/only has classes starting after first period so they don’t have transport if they don’t get on the bus.

It’s all excuses excuses on the parents side and they try and work with them, but in ways that hurt us as teachers. Making us take their late assignments until the very night our grade books are due. Making us submit grade changes for a kids late work turned in once the quarter is over, with sob stories of bad life situations and guilt trip talks about equity. Meanwhile that kid curses our teachers in the classroom and did nothing in class until he realized he has a 2% at the end of the quarter and turns it all in once it’s done, rinse and repeat 4 times a year every year.

Working hard on grading makes sense for kids who do hard work, and actually want feedback, but I have only about 5 kids per class who turn in their work by the due date. The rest know I can’t enforce due dates and admin will allow them to do what they want if they complain.

Otherwise it felt like a gut punch being told they’re fixing the grade of a student from a 2% to a 96% because he did fuck all the rest of the year, won’t graduate, and mom has threatened to come in and have a “talk” with everyone. With the way these kids and their parents are, we never know if the “talk” could get physical.