Grading Freshmen

We’ve been into the second semester for a little while now, and the grades have finally started rolling in—much to my profound disappointment 😁. One thing I’ve noticed lately is that the grading standards seem incredibly harsh; I certainly don't recall things being this rigid back when I was in school. In my son's class, everyone seems to be stuck with mediocre Cs and Ds, and Bs are apparently a rarity. To make matters worse, I hear that last year's group only had three students receive any kind of academic honors at all. Honestly, it feels excessive. In my day, almost everyone in my class cruised through the first two grades with high marks, and let's be clear, we weren't exactly Nobel laureates or child prodigies. If someone had told me back then that my child would come home with a C in reading today, I wouldn't have believed them. A C in first grade? It just feels wrong 😲. Look, I’m not going to obsess over every single letter on a report card—he'll learn to read eventually—but I can't help but wonder if there's a better way to handle this. Since they aren't allowed to bring tests home, I have no idea which specific concepts he's struggling with, which makes it nearly impossible to sit down and review the material with him effectively.
Anyway, that's my experience. How are things looking in your school districts?

I’m currently working with fourth graders, and honestly, I can tell you firsthand that grading these days is anything but rigorous. When I asked one of the teachers at the start of the last semester how the kids were actually performing—just so I could get a feel for the class—she told me that scoring a 23 out of 27 still earns an A, which blew my mind. I had to ask her, "Wait, so what does it take to actually get an A?" And she just looked at me and said that even if a kid doesn't earn it, parents will show up... complain... nag... threaten everything under the sun until they eventually bully the teacher into handing over a pity grade.
It’s honestly depressing to see how much weight parents put on a single letter grade when we all know it isn't a true reflection of what a child actually knows, especially since the entire assessment rests on the shoulders of just one person.

All I can tell you is that we didn't use grades back then; we used colored dots instead. 😂 But man, you must have really worked hard to earn five red ones. 🤷
There were maybe six or seven kids in my class who consistently had all five red dots, but most of us didn't.
The black dots were way too easy to get—just talk a little too much during class and boom, you've got a black dot. 🤣

Back when we were in first grade, we had those little smiley and sad face icons, though that was easily more than twenty years ago😁

Oh, we used to get gold stars too! Haha, it honestly felt like our grades depended entirely on how creative the teacher was feeling that day.🤣 We also had those descriptive evaluations in our report cards, things like "demonstrates excellent behavior" or "integrates well with the class group."

amberranger9 said:I’m currently working with fourth graders, and honestly, I can tell you firsthand that grading these days is anything but rigorous. When I asked one of the teachers at the start of the last semester how the kids were actually performing—just so I could get a feel for the class—she told me that scoring a 23 out of 27 still earns an A, which blew my mind. I had to ask her, "Wait, so what does it take to actually get an A?" And she just looked at me and said that even if a kid doesn't earn it, parents will show up... complain... nag... threaten everything under the sun until they eventually bully the teacher into handing over a pity grade.
It’s honestly depressing to see how much weight parents put on a single letter grade when we all know it isn't a true reflection of what a child actually knows, especially since the entire assessment rests on the shoulders of just one person.

I’m definitely with you on that bolded part.
Luckily, we don't see much of that nonsense in our small town, but I’ve heard from parents
and teachers—including some I know and plenty in my own family—that this kind of thing is pretty common in the big cities.
The whole begging and even threatening people just to get an A for their kid...
it’s honestly terrifying to me, and I really don't agree with the idea that every single first grader should automatically be passing with top marks.
It isn't fair to the kids who actually work hard, and I guess that’s why grades exist in the first place: you get
exactly what you earn.

Michelle James13 said:We’ve been into the second semester for a little while now, and the grades have finally started rolling in—much to my profound disappointment 😁. One thing I’ve noticed lately is that the grading standards seem incredibly harsh; I certainly don't recall things being this rigid back when I was in school. In my son's class, everyone seems to be stuck with mediocre Cs and Ds, and Bs are apparently a rarity. To make matters worse, I hear that last year's group only had three students receive any kind of academic honors at all. Honestly, it feels excessive. In my day, almost everyone in my class cruised through the first two grades with high marks, and let's be clear, we weren't exactly Nobel laureates or child prodigies. If someone had told me back then that my child would come home with a C in reading today, I wouldn't have believed them. A C in first grade? It just feels wrong 😲. Look, I’m not going to obsess over every single letter on a report card—he'll learn to read eventually—but I can't help but wonder if there's a better way to handle this. Since they aren't allowed to bring tests home, I have no idea which specific concepts he's struggling with, which makes it nearly impossible to sit down and review the material with him effectively.
Anyway, that's my experience. How are things looking in your school districts?

...honestly, I fail to see how it should be any different😕...how else could one even begin to implement rigorous standards for knowledge or lack thereof...perhaps once they reach high school, but elementary school is something everyone is expected to pass regardless 🤷
...and frankly, an A should be somewhat elusive; it ought to be a reward for truly exceptional mastery, at least in theory... I genuinely struggle to grasp why parents feel so let down when their children aren't on the Honor Roll, immediately pointing fingers at the teachers or the faculty... to earn an A, one really should have to meet a higher set of criteria, something more substantial than just memorizing facts and regurgitating them... if you're just doing the bare minimum of absorbing the curriculum, a C is perfectly sufficient 😁

My little guy is in first grade and we just had one of those parent-teacher meetings about grading. They showed us the school district's official rubric and honestly, it looks pretty brutal. The teacher mentioned they have some wiggle room to nudge a grade here and there depending on the situation, but not always. Like, if there are five assignments and you need all five perfect to get an A, there’s basically zero margin for error. It really comes down to how intense the teacher is. My middle kid has this total hardass for a teacher who grades everything—even art, music, and PE—like it's a midterm at Harvard. My kid's been doing track for three years, but she gave him a C in PE just because he couldn't nail a specific backroll move... My wife's sister is a teacher too, and she told us that for subjects like those, as long as the kid shows up with their gear and actually participates, they should be getting an A. But according to the actual handbook, you have to memorize all fifteen songs they learn during the year just to pass music with flying colors.

Everything's going great so far, though—he can already read and write, so no issues there. He's even crushing the word problems! Okay, maybe I'm bragging a little... 🙂

I’m actually floored by this news about the English dictation exams... like, seriously? They just finally finished moving away from print and now they’re doing this?🤷

Austin Chavez5 said:I’m actually floored by this news about the English dictation exams... like, seriously? They just finally finished moving away from print and now they’re doing this?🤷

In first grade, kids learning a second language should really just be doing picture dictations... you know, where the teacher says a word and the children just draw it on their paper.
What is this about black ink and spelling words???
Are you absolutely certain they mean actual writing? Because that seems completely nonsensical to me.

For sure, expect plenty of drawings and some writing too

She wrote "SUMMER - 4ETO" right on the board, and the kid actually copied it down exactly like that. Then she totally loses it on him, screaming about how he doesn't even know how to spell basic words!

I don't care how many teachers or school administrators try to tell you that kids don't need to know their letters, numbers, or basic reading skills before starting first grade => they are talking absolute nonsense because we all know that's just not true... if a child walks into that classroom without those fundamentals, they are going to struggle immensely. My son, for instance, couldn't read at all when he started, and his grasp on the alphabet was pretty shaky too... I can tell you from experience, I spent the entirety of his first and second grade working intensely with him, though things tapered off a bit by third and fourth grade... even though he was in an after-school program, we still tackled his homework together at home. During the first semester, everything was just smiley faces and little drawings of flowers... the highest "grade" he could get was when they actually drew them in gold ink! But then the second semester rolled around and actual grading kicked in, which was a massive shock to both the kids and the parents because it's incredibly rigorous. I never once thought it was a good idea to go down to the school just to nag or beg for updates—that’s just ridiculous—but I did go to see exactly where we needed to focus our efforts. He's in fifth grade now, and honestly, he studies on his own, handles his own homework, and has maintained straight A's all this time... I’m really just there to double-check his work and quiz him occasionally.

Parents with kids today absolutely have to be involved in the work and the learning process, especially during those early school years... not just to do the work for them, but to instill proper study habits and show them *how* to learn. Without that support, life is incredibly difficult these days.

Michelle James13 said:We’ve been into the second semester for a little while now, and the grades have finally started rolling in—much to my profound disappointment 😁. One thing I’ve noticed lately is that the grading standards seem incredibly harsh; I certainly don't recall things being this rigid back when I was in school. In my son's class, everyone seems to be stuck with mediocre Cs and Ds, and Bs are apparently a rarity. To make matters worse, I hear that last year's group only had three students receive any kind of academic honors at all. Honestly, it feels excessive. In my day, almost everyone in my class cruised through the first two grades with high marks, and let's be clear, we weren't exactly Nobel laureates or child prodigies. If someone had told me back then that my child would come home with a C in reading today, I wouldn't have believed them. A C in first grade? It just feels wrong 😲. Look, I’m not going to obsess over every single letter on a report card—he'll learn to read eventually—but I can't help but wonder if there's a better way to handle this. Since they aren't allowed to bring tests home, I have no idea which specific concepts he's struggling with, which makes it nearly impossible to sit down and review the material with him effectively.
Anyway, that's my experience. How are things looking in your school districts?

I'm a teacher, and honestly, I've handed out plenty of D's in reading during first grade... I don't get why people think that's weird. Not every kid is going to pull an A in reading. Besides, the scale is 1-5... when a kid gets a 3, the parent needs to step up, work with them more, and practice reading so they actually succeed next time.

I never sent tests home and I don't plan to. Any parent can look over their child's specific tests during individual conferences to see exactly where they messed up. Plus, after every test, corrections are written right in the notebook, so parents can see exactly which types of problems need more practice.

The real issue here is the reading grade and the teacher, from what I can tell. There's a massive amount of material to cover in a short time, so teachers really need to spend more one-on-one time with the students.

Someone mentioned here that they helped their kid with homework while the kid was supposed to be in after-school care... that's insane to me. Why??? It's the teacher's job to work individually with students who are struggling so the work actually gets done at school (that's literally the whole point of after-school programs). These teachers aren't daycare workers or babysitters. Some kids are super restless and refuse to do work at school. A colleague of mine who runs the after-school program has zero tolerance for that... those kids stay late, and you wouldn't believe how fast they knock out their homework once they're forced to focus. Of course, that's all coordinated with the parents.

Stop stressing about the grades because you're just stressing out the kid. It creates massive pressure and frustration. Every grade is earned based on merit and knowledge, and besides, any grade can be improved later.

I've always been known as a pretty tough teacher. Parents from the last generation (before I was pregnant) were sometimes furious about my strict grading. When I ran into them later while I was on maternity leave, they were yelling at me, saying they regretted my strictness because my substitute was too soft. They claimed the kids totally checked out and lost their drive to learn or their curiosity because they knew they could just coast to an A.

You're only in first grade. Help your kid find their footing and make sure they experience school in the best possible light. School shouldn't be a nightmare unless we turn it into one.👍

There’s another issue with this grading thing—if everyone walks away with an A, what does that actually signify? It just becomes an average grade rather than being truly above average, which is what it’s supposed to represent. The whole point gets lost in the shuffle.
And honestly, why group the straight-A students together with someone who’s just barely scraping by? Is that even fair? Because who really wins in that scenario? The kid who actually earned their A is definitely going to realize they don't need to break a sweat if they get the exact same grade for doing half the work. Plus, the student who's basically being handed an A learns a pretty bad habit; they start expecting things to always be this easy. But they won't be. Eventually, life hits them with a reality check. And then what?
Now, I don't teach in a K-12 school myself, but I have worked extensively with elementary-aged kids, and my current career is in the education sector, just with older students. So, I'm not just talking out of thin air here. One of my colleagues once told me how she used to coast through high school with nothing but As. She said the standards had totally tanked: "I could have studied way harder, but what was the point? I would've gotten an A regardless. When you're 16 or 17, it's incredibly hard to stay motivated to actually learn something for the sake of knowledge when you're just chasing a letter on a report card." That's exactly how she put it.

Jonathan Adams2 said:I'm a teacher, and honestly, I've handed out plenty of D's in reading during first grade... I don't get why people think that's weird. Not every kid is going to pull an A in reading. Besides, the scale is 1-5... when a kid gets a 3, the parent needs to step up, work with them more, and practice reading so they actually succeed next time.

I never sent tests home and I don't plan to. Any parent can look over their child's specific tests during individual conferences to see exactly where they messed up. Plus, after every test, corrections are written right in the notebook, so parents can see exactly which types of problems need more practice.

The real issue here is the reading grade and the teacher, from what I can tell. There's a massive amount of material to cover in a short time, so teachers really need to spend more one-on-one time with the students.

Someone mentioned here that they helped their kid with homework while the kid was supposed to be in after-school care... that's insane to me. Why??? It's the teacher's job to work individually with students who are struggling so the work actually gets done at school (that's literally the whole point of after-school programs). These teachers aren't daycare workers or babysitters. Some kids are super restless and refuse to do work at school. A colleague of mine who runs the after-school program has zero tolerance for that... those kids stay late, and you wouldn't believe how fast they knock out their homework once they're forced to focus. Of course, that's all coordinated with the parents.

Stop stressing about the grades because you're just stressing out the kid. It creates massive pressure and frustration. Every grade is earned based on merit and knowledge, and besides, any grade can be improved later.

I've always been known as a pretty tough teacher. Parents from the last generation (before I was pregnant) were sometimes furious about my strict grading. When I ran into them later while I was on maternity leave, they were yelling at me, saying they regretted my strictness because my substitute was too soft. They claimed the kids totally checked out and lost their drive to learn or their curiosity because they knew they could just coast to an A.

You're only in first grade. Help your kid find their footing and make sure they experience school in the best possible light. School shouldn't be a nightmare unless we turn it into one.👍

I guess I'll probably take this off-topic now...

Yeah, I was the one who wrote that. And why did I do it? Because the person supervising them after class was—and remains—an absolute CATASTROPHE. I have no clue what she was actually doing with those kids... I can only go by what my son told me, which was basically that she isn't really there, and they are effectively left to their own devices. When she *is* around, she does nothing but yell. Constant yelling. I tried asking to speak with her several times to figure out where the breakdown was happening, but she never had "time," or she'd literally slam the door in my face because she was "too busy." I even complained to the classroom teacher, but she just shrugged her shoulders. I begged her to at least stay in the loop, to be present during these discussions, but I didn't manage to get any traction until second grade, when things finally boiled over into a massive confrontation. It got so bad that she actually had the audacity to claim my husband once wanted to hit her 😕. I think I posted about that somewhere else... in the end, I sent an email to the Principal, praying for some kind of change. We spoke a few times; he kept promising he would look into the "situation"... but by the time my son reached third grade, nothing had changed. Every single parent had an issue with her, but whenever it came time to actually step up or say something, everyone just backed down (out of fear of her 🙄) because they didn't want their kid to become a target...

There was this one time my mom went to pick him up halfway through the first semester of first grade... the whole class was out on the playground, but he was nowhere to be found 😲... she figured he was probably just in the classroom. So my mom goes into the room, and he's not there 😲... she thinks, "Well, maybe he already went home" 😲... at that point, my mother lost it. She practically brought the whole school to its knees because my son knew he only ever went home when someone actually showed up to get him. They eventually found him in the classroom, hiding behind a cabinet... can you believe that? They had been playing soccer, and some little kid had kicked him pretty hard in the leg; he started crying, and instead of helping him, this woman just shoved him into the classroom to shut him up...

That woman is still at the school, just in a different role, and you can't do a damn thing about her. I just hope that by the time my daughter starts school, she'll be gone, because if not, I am absolutely switching her class.

Honestly, you can't even be mad at them because there's zero recourse, right? Like, nobody can actually do anything about it, and all you're gonna end up with is your kid's GPA taking a massive hit.

Seriously, how on earth am I the one at fault here? I’ve tried reaching out to her multiple times because even the teacher couldn't wrap her head around what was actually going wrong or explain why things fall apart the second she leaves the room... Look, she doesn't have any direct control over my kid's grades, sure, but she is there with the kids from roughly noon until about 4:00 PM every single day. As a parent, I have every right—and frankly, an obligation—to talk to her. The fact that she sees absolutely no reason to communicate with parents, acting like she barely even exists on any official school updates, isn't just my headache; it's a massive failure on the part of the school administration too. We never had these kinds of issues with any of the other grade levels...

You hit the nail on the head when you said nobody can actually hold them accountable, but honestly, it’s beyond pathetic... Even the principal pulled me aside and admitted he’s already received several complaints about her and is trying to sort out the mess... If a whole group of parents has been voicing concerns about her specific way of "handling things" over the course of several years, then something is clearly broken here.

I told you there’d be trouble

Kimberly Nguyen said:I guess I'll probably take this off-topic now...

Yeah, I was the one who wrote that. And why did I do it? Because the person supervising them after class was—and remains—an absolute CATASTROPHE. I have no clue what she was actually doing with those kids... I can only go by what my son told me, which was basically that she isn't really there, and they are effectively left to their own devices. When she *is* around, she does nothing but yell. Constant yelling. I tried asking to speak with her several times to figure out where the breakdown was happening, but she never had "time," or she'd literally slam the door in my face because she was "too busy." I even complained to the classroom teacher, but she just shrugged her shoulders. I begged her to at least stay in the loop, to be present during these discussions, but I didn't manage to get any traction until second grade, when things finally boiled over into a massive confrontation. It got so bad that she actually had the audacity to claim my husband once wanted to hit her 😕. I think I posted about that somewhere else... in the end, I sent an email to the Principal, praying for some kind of change. We spoke a few times; he kept promising he would look into the "situation"... but by the time my son reached third grade, nothing had changed. Every single parent had an issue with her, but whenever it came time to actually step up or say something, everyone just backed down (out of fear of her 🙄) because they didn't want their kid to become a target...

There was this one time my mom went to pick him up halfway through the first semester of first grade... the whole class was out on the playground, but he was nowhere to be found 😲... she figured he was probably just in the classroom. So my mom goes into the room, and he's not there 😲... she thinks, "Well, maybe he already went home" 😲... at that point, my mother lost it. She practically brought the whole school to its knees because my son knew he only ever went home when someone actually showed up to get him. They eventually found him in the classroom, hiding behind a cabinet... can you believe that? They had been playing soccer, and some little kid had kicked him pretty hard in the leg; he started crying, and instead of helping him, this woman just shoved him into the classroom to shut him up...

That woman is still at the school, just in a different role, and you can't do a damn thing about her. I just hope that by the time my daughter starts school, she'll be gone, because if not, I am absolutely switching her class.

There's someone like that in every single school district out there

Look, regarding all those grades and the constant nitpicking, I already gave my two cents basically