My daughter is in online school. It’s a state public school, not a private school or homeschooling. She’s in it due to being severely bullied. I have to stay home with her, but I don’t actually teach her anything, I’m a designated ‘learning coach.’
She has assignments based on the same shitty Pierson textbooks the regular school kids use and has online classes with accredited teachers. Those teachers are generally get paid better than other public school teachers since the whole thing is a deal with Pierson, so they’re usually a better level of teacher, which is part of what pisses me off so much.
My daughter worked really hard on her science presentation, a slideshow she was assigned to do. The overall topic was humanity’s impact on the environment and one of the options she could pick was disease. My daughter is a weird kid- in a good way- who is into history when it’s weird too, so she picked the Black Death.
Like I said, she worked really hard. I was really proud of her too because it was the first time she worked on a project this big without asking for or needing any help from me. So, she saved the project as a PDF and submitted the assignment.
The next day (Thursday), she gets back a grade of a zero. This is the teacher’s note:
I noticed that you submitted a placeholder for the portfolio assignment. Is this an error? The portfolio is worth a lot…so please contact me as soon as possible. Please note that intentional placeholders are subject to not being accepted. If I don’t hear back from you soon, I will assume that it is a placeholder. Please do not upload placeholders to move ahead in the class as this may result in failing grades, calls home and referral to administration.
My daughter isn’t a cheater and, like I said, she worked really hard. This stressed her out a lot because one of the reasons we took her out of her middle school was that the teachers rarely had her back when it came to bullying and sometimes also treated her like shit. Because that’s what school is like for neurodivergent kids, even in 2024.
So… were totally confused. On top of everything else, the PDF was right there to download when you review the teacher’s message. I sent her an email asking her what the hell is going on and also have my daughter send her a Google Slides link instead just in case there is some corruption issue on her end or something even though I can download and view the PDF just fine.
We don’t hear back all Thursday and nothing until mid-day Friday, when she sent us both what is clearly a form email, ignoring both of the messages we sent:
Hello Parents and Students!
I wanted to take a moment to let you know that your student received a 0 on their science portfolio, but the great news is that there’s still a chance to improve that grade!
Please log into your student’s gradebook and click on the science portfolio grade to read the feedback provided. This feedback outlines how your student can correct any issues and resubmit the portfolio within the timeframe specified for a better grade.
Let’s work together to help your student succeed! Thank you!
She also responds to my daughter’s google slides link and says it’s a very interesting slideshow and asks where she got it from (you will see below why that is just a bullshit lie to get her to reveal that she cheated).
So I have my daughter also send her the PDF the “fill this out to help you with your research” document my daughter diligently filled out before doing her slideshow and I got mad and sent a message to her homeroom teacher, who you’re supposed to go to for any major problems.
My daughter is now super stressed, and Friday is a pretty easy day for her, so I take her out to do things to give her a nice day- get her a smoothie, let her walk around Five Below, etc.
When we get back, maybe at 1 pm, I check my email. I get this from the teacher:
I have to apologize!! When I first saw her portfolio and saw all the old pictures and the Black Death title, I assumed ( I know, I shouldn’t have) it was a placeholder.
She left a similar voicemail to my wife and apparently one to my daughter, but I didn’t read it. I just said thanks and told my daughter to say thanks as well.
But I’m just floored. She didn’t bother just reading the text. This is the slide right after the title slide. If she had taken a few seconds, she would have realized this is a middle schooler doing a science project:
(I’m not suggesting my kid is stupid, I’m saying that’s pretty typical for her age.)
Be a little less lazy than your eighth graders, lady. And maybe don’t automatically assume they’re cheating.
At least she ended up giving my daughter 100%.
It’s a mistake and it’s now corrected and you’ve received an apology. Celebrate the good grade and discuss the importance of perseverance and maintaining your composure when standard communication fails. It’s totally fine to take time to vent when shit goes wrong, then regroup and make a plan to correct the issue. That’s how we learn to deal with difficult situations. Glad it all worked out for her.
This is my take too. Bad situation, and stressful middle part, but reasonably good resolution. How you and your daughter move forward is a good way to refocus your pent up frustration.
I hope the vent helped! It sounds like part of what’s bothering you is that you expected better. That’s reasonable, but I hope you regain some confidence in her school and the teachers. The apology from the teacher is direct, takes responsibility, and restores the grade. That’s pretty good!
They can’t undo the stress from the miscommunication, and they can’t promise it won’t happen again, but the systems for catching these kinds of mistakes seemed to have worked. That’s pretty good too!
(For context only, I’ll add that I have two kids who did online public school during the worst of the pandemic, and are back in person now. We’ve had problems similar to this one in every format, almost every year. So, that doesn’t change anything that you experienced, but I have some idea of how bad it feels, and what it takes to move on. You can do it!!)
I work in public schools and online teaching sucks!! I almost quit so many times during covid! Ridiculous administrative requirements on multiple platforms that don’t talk to each other. It’s nearly impossible to maintain good communication. We currently use one called Parent Square. I have to subscribe to each school that i serve in order to get a notification that someone from that school has messaged me. Subscribing to a school means that I also get every notice about free school lunch sign up, fire drill, Red ribbon week pajama day, etc. I currently serve 13 schools. That means I get 13 emails everyday about shit that means nothing to me. About half the time it sends those twice, so on those days I get 26. This is so I can be notified when I get a message from a parent or teacher - which happens maybe once a month. Online teaching can turn good teachers into sort, delete, reply technicians.
I don’t know if you know anything about Connections Academy, which is what she goes to, but I would be interested in hearing about it if you do.
I don’t, but I have a couple of friends who left traditional schools during covid to go do online schools. I’ll ask around.
Thanks. Let me know if you find anything, but don’t go out of your way. In general, it’s been a good experience and she’s not getting bullied all the time.
Ugh reading OPs post made me unreasonably angry, but your comment really is correct. Just hard when you’re steaming mad and frustrated.
There are a lot of well put and proper responses @today had a really great response.
But this is a vent thread soo:
That is fucked up. What kind of ‘teacher’ wouldn’t bother to read the project that your daughter put a time and effort into?
A crappy one. Who the hell looks at a kids assignment and thing “clip art off the internet, must be professional no 8th grader could do that”
You are an amazing Dad with a great daughter who deserve a much better teacher than this craphead.
I hope that someone switches the salt and sugar containers in that teachers home. I hope that someone partially deflates that teachers tires causing them increased petrol bills to lessened fuel economy I hope that they are forced to use DSL internet.
Glad this all worked out for you and your kid.
You are an amazing Dad with a great daughter who deserve a much better teacher than this craphead.
Thank you. We got in a big fight with her last night because she refuses to eat healthily to the point that we’re honestly concerned and I really felt like a failure as a parent by the end, so that’s something that I needed to hear. You really helped me more than you could know.
You care and that’s obvious. One thing all parents learn is that we have no idea how to do things “right”. As long as you keep caring to try and find that “right” things, then you can consider yourself a great parent.
You also go above and beyond what most parents will do. So, thank you for advocating for your daughter’s education.
Ha. Someone told me I was a good dad last week and I still feel weird about it.
Food is a hard thing to tackle. I can only imagine what it’s like with a teen. Healthy eating is hard and truly time consuming if you are not rich.
It’s hard with healthy habits and kids, it like ‘do the thing it’s good for you.’ Then they don’t and you get mad at them,
I make sure to say the implied part out loud, ‘do the thing it’s good for you. I want good things for you because I love you. ‘
Saying that part out loud helps ME focus on why I am saying it and why I would get so worked up over something. I often need to apologize and change my tone after I say it.
She has always been an extremely picky eater, which goes with being neurodivergent, but it’s getting to a crisis point.
Get help if you can find it. Crisis is a lot for everyone to deal with.
She has a therapist and a psychiatrist that we are trying to work with. It’s just been a very difficult week all around.
I know online schooling can be frustrating. I earned most of my college degree and 2 certificates that way. Ultimately we’re all human and even teachers make mistakes. There are also online teachers who bullshit their jobs and do dumb shit like taking cursory looks at assignments and half ass grading. I remember reading somewhere that these teachers will take on several classes and get paid per class and that some of them will work with multiple schools.
I’m sorry your daughter had to deal with that stress. You did the best thing your could which is follow up and keep ask about it and in the worst case scenario, escalate it. Usually these teachers also have phone numbers in their syllabus, don’t be afraid to call them or to contact the school to get the number. I remember most online teachers only check their messages once a day and some of them won’t check on weekends.
This will probably happen again at some point. Just follow up and contact the teacher. Any time I ever had issues the teachers were adults about it and apologized. Idk if this is with every online school but mine would send out surveys at the end of each class. If you get those make sure to fill them out with good and bad feedback. The positive thing about this is you are showing your daughter how to handle a real world problem like an adult and how to resolve a conflict with someone she has to work with.
The positive thing about this is you are showing your daughter how to handle a real world problem like an adult and how to resolve a conflict with someone she has to work with.
I tried to. Then I went to my office in the garage and ranted out loud about that motherfucking lazy-ass teacher. But she didn’t have to know about that part.
As a professional in education policy, I’ll let you know that K-12 is pretty terrible. It didn’t work for me especially for exactly these reasons and by 9th grade I was burnt out and stopped doing all homework. Thanks to grade inflation, I still got Cs (they have me a C on a quiz I drew a doodle on instead of answering questions on a book I didn’t read).
I still got a PhD, but it took community college (and transferred) and the slightly higher respect for me as a person helped tons. There are still shitty instructors at that level, but you have a better chance to avoid them if you navigate the system carefully.
In other words, you’ll run into crap like this plenty but even in a worst case scenario, as long as your kid is still smart they’ll ultimate have more chances. (Also don’t forget internal motivation, validation from teachers is hit or miss but if they do something they like themselves that should also not be diminished).
By the way they act online, nothing about this is suprising.
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
(Those who can’t teach, administrate.)
Hi there, I just want to take a moment to tell you to go fuck yourself.
Also, OP, that’s such a shitty situation. I’m really sorry the teacher didn’t do their job properly, and also glad that they noticed and apologised for their mistake. Hopefully, they’ve learnt their lesson a bit and are more effective in checking assignments in the future.
Well done to your daughter on what looks like a great assignment.
I’d like to second that “go fuck yourself,” but I won’t because they don’t deserve the pleasure.
I’ve been around educators pretty much my entire life. My Dad was an instructor for the local electrical workers union, my sister is a special education teacher for K-3 children, my Mom teaches photography as a side job, I currently work with a man who was a marine corp instructor for network administration, and I’ve worked with at least five other people who were educators in some capacity either currently or in the past. All of them were masters of their field.
Saying that people who choose to teach their craft to others only do so because they are in some way incompetent is thoroughly disgusting and this fuckstain should be ashamed.
To the teacher’s credit, when she did read the whole thing, she agreed that it was really well-done.
I don’t know, maybe it was just a really bad week for her or something.
Via.
