Click for VIDEO link. Or watch the videos above.
Aaaak. Apparently, Atherton's cheating scandal was the tip of the iceberg. Richard Belcher at WSB reports that a new grade inflation scandal has been uncovered at MLK High School. Apparently, MLK science teacher Aquarius Cain has blown the whistle that teachers are under pressure not to fail students and that the grades of her mostly failing students were altered by a long-term sub while she was out on maternity leave. Principal Ken Baker had no comment.
If you would like to catch up on some of the other bad news in DeKalb schools, click to view these WSB reports --
Atherton Elementary principal may face criminal charges.
Eugene Walker recused himself on the Development Authority vote for the Sembler tax abatement.
And now we find that the DeKalb County Board of Ethics may actually be an oxymoron.
Also, if you would like to read up on the $$$ extension of Judge Moore's contract, read about it in the Champion -
ReplyDeletehttp://championnewspaper.com/schoolprobe.html
I wonder if these students were athletes, as this seems to happen to students who need to pass in order to participate in extra-curricular activities.
ReplyDeleteShoot, this even went on back in my day - athletes receiving preferential treatment. :)
Oh wow, I loved the post, when will the next one be coming?
ReplyDeleteI don't think this was just for athletes. My impression from the report was that in addition to the students in this particular class, ALL the students at MLK were given a 5% grade jump because of attending the Advisement class (sort of like homeroom. I think this class is included at every high school, but it is not an academic class, and thus has no grade attached.
ReplyDeleteDr. Lewis said that the advisement class did not affect the students' overall grade in ANY OTHER DeKalb high school, and it was not supposed to.
They also mention that the principal, Ken Baker is no longer at MLK. You don't suppose that he was deemed one of those highly qualified principals who each got $10k for changing schools....? Does anyone know the names of those principals?
ReplyDeleteLet me just put it to you this way. It is way to hard to flunk a kid in DCSS.
ReplyDeleteLet's say you have student that is not passing.
1) You have to talk to the parent.. VOICEMAIL does not work. Do you know how hard it is to try and track down parents?
2) You have to show on your remediation log that you have either down work with the student before or after school to help that student bring up the grade.
3) Remember the ZAPP policy. Basically teachers are can not give zero's on an assignment. You have to make every effort to get the student to do the work. You notice the you is on the teacher.
So let's say you teach 100 students per day.... And 10% did not pass. Yes I know that is high but I am on summer break and can't divide hard numbers.. (had to through a little humor in there)...
Let's say that 1 of those students is causing the teacher an extra 3 hours of either before school or after school time. Now multiply that by 10. That's 30 extra hours for just 10 students. What about the other 90 that are doing the work and trying to pass the class?
Now as a parent... I would want my teacher to concentrate on those 90 that were trying their hardest and not the 10 that you could not or would not.
As a teacher. I really will try my hardest to get the student to make up their work, but I will not give you chance upon chance upon chance. I do have a family and a life outside of the classroom.
I have had two instances that happen to me. One was a DCSS administrators grandchild and another was the quarterback at a high school in DCSS. Of course their grades were changed without me knowing about it until the school started and I had to sign a form stating that I knew about the grade change.
Right then and there it was 70's for me... Not worth the headache and heart break.
We need to realize that all students are not college bound, but we have to teach them as if they were. The thing is I don't know how to do it.
I am so sorry but DCSS is headed the way of Clayton. In Clayton you can't give a student below a 50. If they do not turn in the work they get a 50. The said thing is that they know it.
Cere.... The CRCT test scores are out. You might want to post those.
ReplyDeleteThe CRCT results are out.
ReplyDeleteDCSS should be ASHAMED.
Over HALF of our 8th graders (district wide) FAILED Science.
Over HALF of our 8th graders (district wide) FAILED Social Studies.
The FAILURE rates in MATH at ALL grade levels (1-8) are nothing less than heart breaking.
When will the citizens of DeKalb County be ashamed?
Is there any level of failure that will embarass us?
What? They didn't find a way to change the CRCT scores??
ReplyDeleteI'll get those numbers and post them here.
Meantime - be sure to tune in to the Stan Watson Show tonight and watch Dr. Walker defend himself...
Please tune in to Comcast Channel 25 at
7:30 pm tonight for The Stan Watson Show.
My guests will be:
Dr. Michael Smith, Lung Cancer Specialist
Dr. Eugene Walker with DeKalb Development Authority and DeKalb County School Board member
DoWhopBoiz will perform a special tribute to Michael Jackson
The show is broadcast LIVE so invite all of your friends and neighbors to call the studio to ask questions.
The phone number to call in to the show is (770) 559-2999. I look forward to hearing from you tonight.
Stan Watson
I watched the 6:00 report, and they said the principal involved, Mr. Baker, was going to be principal at Towers.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm curious - was he one of the $10,000 bonus winners? Did he get this bonus due to his "improvement in graduation rates?" Maybe this was a motivation to change scores?
ReplyDeleteI think about this because 1) he warned the teacher not to fail so many students, 2) the grades were changed electronically while that teacher was on leave 3) The teacher asked him what to do about the "sub" and the changed scores when she discovered them upon her return and the principal told her to leave it alone and 4) the sub denies changing the scores.
from anon12.08
ReplyDeleteBaker, former principal of MLK, has been made principal at Towers. Talk about a small world. Super Crawfort also moved the principal of MLK before Baker, Sylvester Nelloms, from assistant principal at Avondale to assistant principal at Towers. Word is that Baker will be removed in December to make way for Nelloms as principal. Just change the name of Towers to Loser HS.
But the saddest high school would have to be SWD. It has TWO demoted principals as assistant principals: that guy from Bethune MS and the former principal of Towers. Watch SWD melt down!
Peace. Out!
My guess is that Baker just moved sideways, without a bonus. He was replaced by Mr. Patrick who has been at Druid Hills. I presume that Patrick got the bonus for moving from a school that is making AYP to a school that is not.
ReplyDeleteDoes is not dawn on any of these professional educators (or parents and coaches) that passing the students along with false grades is harming the students?
The July 20th Board meeting should be interesting in many ways....
Now we know why Crawford Lewis wrote that ridiculous, fawning memo supporting of criminal & cheater James Berry: Because Berry isn't the only principal breaking the rules.
ReplyDeleteIt's time for Crawford lewis to be let go, along with most of the Central Office upper management.
I'm just hoping someone takes this teacher at her word and investigates. I'm not saying the principal did anything wrong, but somebody apparently did at MLK. And according to this teacher, the pressure is on to push kids through - regardless of whether they understand the material. She will apparently lose her job now showing that our leaders would rather kill the messenger than deal with the reality of the message - that many of our students haven't been properly educated.
ReplyDeleteI'm also a bit concerned about the office of Internal Affairs - the group that would do the investigating. Apparently, according to MACE (which is a very vocal teachers rep group), another teacher went to IA and asked them to investigate what she saw as rampant cheating at Clarkston HS. Take it for what you want - but this story seems pretty credible to me. I'll warn you - Dr. John Trotter, MACE Chairman is pretty radical - and doesn't have much love for Dr. Lewis.
http://www.theteachersadvocate.com/
anon 12.08 - who is Nelloms? Do you know the names of the principals who got the $10k bonuses to change schools? Ms. Moton got one after only 2 years at Lakeside (after coming to Lakeside from a Middle School in Gwinnett that didn't make AYP)...apparently she's the best DCSS's got -- so who else?
ReplyDeleteAs far as SW DeKalb - that's pitiful - especially after firing the chorus teacher over bad student behavior. Lakeside is in as bad a place. Luckily - the new principal (4th one in 6 years) has years of experience and is well-respected and apparently pretty tough (let's hope). But the next most tenured administrator is an AP hired by Moton less than 2 years ago. I've heard this referred to as "controlled chaos"...
Druid Hills principal got it as well...
ReplyDeleteSequoyah Middle's did as well.
Someone pleasee tell me what the DCSS Internal Affairs Division actually does and how it can justify have a staff of eight? It's bad enough the head of IA Ron Ramsey isn't in the office for three months of the year while he's a state senator.
ReplyDeleteYou would think that with a staff of 8, DCSS IA would be able to thoroughly investigate big problems whenever needed. Not sure why they never ever investigate student residency concerns. A parent/guardian can and should be arrested for sending their child to a school system without the proper residency. Even Fulton County has cracked down on stopping non-resident students, who take up valuable resources from actual residents and taxpayers.
Lakeside is not anywhere near as "bad a place." My children have done well in SWD's high-achievers' program. But they have been taught by mainly white teachers who stand head and shoulders above the rest, and they have to ignore being called "oreos" constantly. The worst thing for me as a parent is that I am told by my child that "I'm embarrassed to be black." When I see the way DCSS functions it's hard for me to come up with a response beyond getting out of south Dekalb.
ReplyDeleteTo One Fed Up Insider....
ReplyDeleteNot all teachers or schools follow the Zapp rule. This is clearly another example of inconsistencies.
My children have received zeros and they have been dealt with at home as a result of it.
Whoa - that's not at all what I meant - sorry if I wasn't clear. I just meant that high performing schools like Lakeside and SW DeKalb are suffering from Dr Lewis' "Principal Shuffle". Lakeside has had to endure 4 principals in the last 6 years. SW DeKalb apparently has 2 APs who are former (demoted) principals as well as a very highly respected chorus teacher who was fired due to misbehavior on the part of some of his students.
ReplyDeleteIt's very hard to maintain consistent high quality when you have to work through new leadership so often. It harms the school, IMO. Sometimes I wonder if DCSS just doesn't want any school to shine... it makes the others look bad.
Speaking of -- you may have noticed that the article in the AJC highlighting the highest performing schools on the CRCT listed Kittredge and Wadsworth. So you see - without the magnet program, we would barely have a listing (the others listed were Fernbank, Austin, Ashford Park, Chesnut and DK Academy.)
My son earned F's at Lakeside and had to deal with it as well. No way did they offer him to make up work, change grades or delete some assignments. Nope, nada. He had to dig his way out of his own hole -- and he did! And he's much stronger for it.
ReplyDeleteNon of the schools my kids have attended adhered to the ZAPP rule either. Zero's for incomplete work, late assignments, etc....and just like Cere......they had to digg their way up and out of the hole they created.....and it was good for them.....stressful for me to watch but good for them to experience!!!!
ReplyDeleteMy son at Lakeside also got ZAPPED for not showing his work in Alg. 2 Advanced at Lakeside. He learned a lesson I believe for not following the directions of his teacher.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was unethical for administrators to change the grades of students. I thought the teacher was the only one who could do this. Maybe I have been informed correctly by looking at this report. Maybe DeKalb County Principals are just doing what they want regardless of what is ethical.
Let's be real. Substitute teachers don't get paid enough to fall to "pressure" to change a permanent teacher's grades. Wake up School Board, there's more to the story. If the Board won't fix the problem and you want your children to get a decent education, energize your communities and replace the board.
ReplyDeleteWe've been trying. It's harder than you think. People don't place a high enough level of importance on school board, even though their overall budget, including construction is about 4X the City of Atlanta's budget. Developers see it though - thus we have the Semblers of the world contributing to the campaigns of the Gene Walkers of the world. It's damn hard for an ordinary Joe to raise that much money.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone else hear the report that 90% of her class was failing???? Do you think it was her or her students?
ReplyDeleteAnon South Side - I had not heard that the failure rate in her class was 90%. While a 90% failure rate may say something about the teacher, it does not excuse changing the grades.
ReplyDeleteI did hear that in the report. I think they also said she was new to the school - so she may have been teaching somewhere else before that, or she may be a new teacher. But she claimed that these were "real" F's... making me think that these students had been passed along all along (remember - this is a science class - the subject 52% of our system's 8th graders failed the CRCT in. Surely this lack of knowledge is going to really start piling up somewhere - especially if students come across a teacher who doesn't know she is supposed to just pass them along.)
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, in that feeder pattern we have Columbia MS where 58.2% of 8th graders failed CRCT science and 64.7% failed SS. And Chapel HIll MS where 54.2% failed science and 52.3% failed SS. Lithonia MS, 54.6% failed science and 58.6% failed SS. Miller Grove MS students had 63.2% fail science and 47.5% failed SS. And then at Salem MS, 52.1% failed science and 63.8% failed SS.
Those are the 2009 scores, I'll try to dig up 2006 - which would probably consist of students in this class at MLK - But think about it - this is what happens when the school system knows darn well that they are sending students to high school totally unprepared.
cere, my son was a student in her ghsgt prep classes and she was hardly there even before she went on maternity leave. It's very hard to determine what the whole truth is in this situation. From what I was told, each teacher had access to update the grade book during the 3 week period they had the students. Science was 1st 3 weeks, my son's grades were input regularly, next 3 weeks, the math teacher updated regularly. No grades were input the entire month of March (they tested the last 2wks) In mid-April, grades started to show up, however, none of the assignments had anything to do with HSGT, as they had already taken it. Soon after my son came home and told me she had been fired for changing grades. I've heard different stories from other teachers and parents regarding this issue and I don't think we'll ever get to the bottom of it.
ReplyDeletethat's interesting, msbssy. thanks for letting us know this. I think it's important to get to the bottom of this issue - it should not be left alone. I wonder if the program itself has a "history" of log-ins and can take us back to where the grades were changed - and who was logged in at the time...
ReplyDeleteI assume the teacher's were logging the grades in Smartweb. I believe each teacher has their own login. Do substitutes or do the use the permanent teacher's login?
ReplyDeletemykidsmom brings up a great point. How in the heck do the nimrods administrators not even know who entered the grades? With log-in ID's, hearing the DCSS Central Office give the freaking incredibly lame excuse that they don't know who entered the grades is complete B.S. It's a complete lack of oversight and efficiency that the Central Office has no way to track which teacher has entered in grades.
ReplyDeleteThis one is all on you, Gloria Talley and Bob Moseley. Even if this teacher is somewhat at fault here, the revelation that the Central Office doesn't even know who enters in grades is a major, major admittance of incompetence.
Actually, the technology falls in Ramona Tyson's department. I'm certain someone there could figure this out. She just spent a lot of time, money and energy upgrading the whole system.
ReplyDeleteBut you're all correct, just saying, "we don't know who changed the grades" and hoping that will make it all go away isn't going to work.
If the electronic gradebook is the same as the one used 5 years ago, the teacher logs on with an id/password. I suspect the sub would use that same id/password. They would not have one of their own. Any computer can be used to access the gradebook (the access is tied to id, not terminal), so you absolutely can/could not identify who changed the grades.
ReplyDeleteTeachers of one set of classes cannot access the gradebooks for another set, but if they are sharing the same class (like the GHSGT-prep class that passed through different subject areas, then any teacher who handled any segment of the class could access all the grades.
That's kind of disturbing.
ReplyDeletebbo234 - we have some good posts being investigated right now by some of our team members -- stay tuned!
ReplyDeleteMs. Cain is a relatively new teacher. She graduated from high school in Augusta in 1999. Perhaps finished college in 2003 or 2004. She was teaching (biology, I think) at Rutland High School in Macon in 2005. She was hired by Bartow County in July 2006 to teach science at Cass High School (interesting aside - Bartow superintendent is Abbe Boring, late of DCSS). Still working at finding out when she came to DCSS.
ReplyDeleteBartow superintendent is Abbe Boring, late of DCSS).
ReplyDeleteYou're kidding!!! I had no idea. I wish she'd come to this blog - and give us the REAL low-down!!
Abbe Boring hasn't been superintendent in Bartow County for over a year. Last I heard, she moved back to Texas.
ReplyDeleteBig Update:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wsbtv.com/video/20007801/index.html
Area Superintendent Horace Dunston has some explaining to do.
I am comfortable in believing that DCSS knows the date the grades were changed, the ID used to change the grades and the computer that was used to change the grades.
ReplyDeleteI'm certain that someone in a position of authority knows who changed those grades. Was it the ZAPP rule in its' finest hour? Was Ms Cain aware or instructed to do so and refused? Did the students decide they weren't going to follow the instructions of this teacher? Did they over hear their parents bashing the teacher so they felt like they did not have too? Did Ms Cain teach her subject matter clearly? Lord knows the questions can go on for ever........ My question is because of this obvious failure in the system, what do we do to correct it so that "this" never happens again......
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness! What in the heck is going on here? There is strong evidence of grade changing and the system FIRES THE TEACHER who gave the original grade - and then the Area Super denies having a copy of her hand-written grade book? The system doesn't even seem concerned about the grade changes - just the fact that this teacher had the nerve to fail some of the kids at MLK. Let me tell you - we have several teachers at Lakeside who consistently fail a high percentage of students and their grades stick. You fail. Study harder and do it again. Maybe that's why Dunson was moved as Area Super over Lakeside...to Area Super over MLK?
ReplyDeleteI can't bring up the video. Does anyone know if the teacher indicates where the grades were changed - in her gradebook or within the Smartweb system? It was my understanding that the grades posted within Smartweb are the ones that are used - as my child's paper progress report/report cards always reflected the same grades as were posted in Smartweb. I know there are deadlines for getting the grades posted electronically (for progress report and report card purposes). Since this teacher was on maternity leave, someone had to have posted grades.
ReplyDeleteStay tuned, I don't think we've heard the last of this.
"It gives me a great deal of concern over the school district as a whole when a person at a high position of responsibility gets on the air and just tells a bald-faced lie about having the grade book."
ReplyDelete"There's no incentive to study, to work hard at all... they may as well just pick up a report card every few months with A's on it."
- Michael Katz, Attorney for Aquarius Cain
mykidsmom - Ms. Cain keeps her grades in ink in a hand-written grade book. She then also posts them online in the SmartWeb. She entered all of her grades from her grade book to the online system before she left on maternity leave. After that - someone went in the online system and changed the failing grades that she had entered. So - now - they don't match her hand-written grade book.
ReplyDeleteRecording grades in a hand-written gradebook and then transferring is how all the teachers I've worked with do it. They did it for convenience, so they didn't have to fire up the computer gradebook every day.
ReplyDeleteMakes sense - who knew how valuable it would be as evidence?
in speaking with a few other parents, I've heard that mrs cain also changed some grades that were posted by the sub because she didn't believe the students earned it. These weren't grades that she originally posted but grades that were given in her absence. Her grade-book will show the grades earned while she was there, but what about the grades earned when she wasn't there? Should all of the grades be in question & if so, how does that affect the students? What about the 10% who weren't failing---is their "A "truly legit when you can't tell what was going on?
ReplyDeleteoy! what a mess!!
ReplyDeleteWell, if she changed grades that were entered while she was out without any justification, then Ms. Cain has some explaining to do as well.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me this will be swept under the rug and ignored, if possible.
from anon12.08
ReplyDeleteHorace Dunson and Gloria Dodson were the original principals at MLK. It was a mix of middle/high. Dodson just retired from Stone Mountain MS rather than take a demotion. Dunson was promoted to Area Director at the end of fall quarter, and Sylvester Nelloms, Jr., was appointed principal at MLK. In his first semester at the school, he made national news about the cake knife incident and was subsequently involved in at least three lawsuits over his tenure as principal. He was demoted to assistant principal at Avondale HS and has now been transferred to Towers HS as 11th grade assistant principal. The principal at Towers HS now is Kenn Baker, Nelloms's successor at MLK. The irony is that both failed principals at MLK are at the same failed high school for next year.
What is being omitted from the discussion about the grade changing allegations of Ms. Cain is that THE ENTIRE FACULTY was pressured to change grades, regularly pressured. Who was the one doing the pressuring? The assistant principal for instruction Stephanie May. I know of at least one teacher who filed complaints with Ron Ramsay's office a number of times about May's actions against the faculty. She would call teachers to the office over the intercom and berate them in front of parents, counselors, Kenn Baker about the grades they were awarding. In many cases, I understand that teachers went and changed failing to higher grades because of May's interference. An Open Records Act request to Ramsay's office about May's doings at MLK would be enlightening.
Peace. Out.
[More later about Dunson's encounter with the naked teacher in a raincoat at Salem MS when he was principal there. He does have a child out of wedlock, at least one, that is.]
aaaaak! Don't tell me this stuff anon12.08 - I can't take it!!
ReplyDeleteOk - ok - on second thought, please, tell us more ---
I just found another Channel 2 report on this - I'll post it so you all can see it.
My head is spinning now.....First the Braves trade Jeff Francoeur and now reading anon12.08. Wow, what a day.
ReplyDeleteCerebration
ReplyDeleteI know of 2 principals given the bonus
Trenton Arnold moved from Sequoyah Middle to Stone Mountain Middle
Millicent Frieson Black moved from Robert Shaw to Panola Way ES
Not sure of his name but the principal at Druid Hills HS moved to Towers high school. I heard he is really going to have a tough time. Can't wait to see if they turn it around
Substitutes can get access to the online smartweb gradebook if they are long term subs, such as when a teacher is out on maternity leave. It is simple, the registrar just has to reset the account and give the sub a log in and then she can have access to the gradebook. Did you catch this, the registrar can do it, so if they can, then any employee can have access if directed by a school administrator. Central office staff can also assist in this process if an administrator calls them and has them reset the password and log in.
ReplyDeleteGreat Job Ms. Cain, if anyone has any dealings with Mr. Dunson, be sure to record it or document in some way. He does seem to have his own version of the truth.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Anyone know of anymore principals who got the $10,000 bonus? We just need to watch this experiment to see if it works or not... stay tuned - -we'll be watching!
ReplyDeleteTeachers complained about Stephanie May to DCSS head of Internal Affairs Ron Ramsey? Lord bless them for believing that Ron Ramsey and his staff would ever investigate a situation where a DCSS administrator did something that would bring embarrassment to the system.
ReplyDeleteRon Ramsey's $120,000+ salary a year is taxpayer money spent without one smidgen of return on investment.
here are some links for the channel news report:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wsbtv.com/video/19971647/
http://www.wsbtv.com/video/19996599/
http://www.wsbtv.com/video/20007801/
From my understanding, mrs cain never changed the grades the sub put in, she only changed back the grades that he changed without her consent or knowledge. The report stated that she even send a letter home to the parents letting them know what was going on.
ReplyDeleteThere is ALWAYS a way to find out where those grades were changed. The question is....does the school system REALLY want to find out.
ReplyDeleteSome students that took her class said that it really wasn't a hard class to take. If you did the work and at least tried hard, you would pass, but you had to earn it...nothing is never giving to you. I applaud her for caring for the students education. School systems need someone like her. But I think the school system is going to try to cover this up, but its going to work.
ReplyDeleteOK, I had been attending the SREB conference downtown this week and missed the grade-changing news until today. We should all take note that the full story is obviously never going to be made public and will be subject to speculation even if it does.
ReplyDelete.....However, I don't fully blame Princ. or Asst. Princ. when it comes to pressures regarding grade changing or failure rates. These types of directives come from County Officials - Deputy Superintendents, Area Directors, and their "operatives". Rules like "no more than 15% failure rates" are not written but clearly made known to teachers in an unashamed effort to pass unworthy students on to the next level.
Interestingly enough, one of the overwhelming themes being promoted at the SREB conference was "Zero is not an option". This mantra places a cartload of pressure on teachers to give students multiple opportunities to do, redo, and re-redo work until it is "acceptable" or alternatively give the student a made up grade such as 50 (since it's still an F anyway) when a student does not perform. Teachers are to assess the standard ; and since all students have the capacity to learn then our assessments should reflect their level of understanding rather than a failure to understand. Teachers have failed their students if any one of them receives an F grade.
Tricky, huh???
Can anyone explain this to me ?
They say "zero is not a option", but how do you grade a student who doesnt do the work, let alone NEVER in class. You can't grade something you can't see. Also, where is the discipline for the students the disrupt class on a daily basis and the teacher spend more time with a rude student more than she is teaching the class and when they are sent out, the students are sent right back to class. what is a teacher to do.
ReplyDelete"... give students multiple opportunities to do, redo, and re-redo work until it is "acceptable" or alternatively give the student a made up grade such as 50 --"
ReplyDeleteWe are doing kids a big disservice by coddling to them like this. There's no demand for this kind of work ethic in the real world.
Ok....so say the teacher does give the students all of these chances, and they still don't do the work, where does it all end. If I'm not mistaken, somebody said that the lowest grade a teacher can give is a 50.....Duhhh...itsn't that still failing??? And where are the parents in all of this. I'm getting reports that this isn't the first time that Dr. May, Baker and Dunson have tried to strong-arm her. I can't imagine that this is an isolated event, I know its more teachers that's going thru the same situation.....why aren't they speaking up. This just can't continue to go on in this or any other school system
ReplyDelete"...somebody said that the lowest grade a teacher can give is a 50.....Duhhh...itsn't that still failing??? ..."
ReplyDeleteLet's do the math. There is a BIG difference between a 50 and a 0. Let's say a student has six assignment grades;
0 0 100 100 100 100; Avg.= 67
Another student from the "no grade below a 50" school has six assignment grades:
50 50 80 80 80 80; Avg. = 70
When you deal with the fact that teachers have much more than six grades and averages are weighted according to category then you realize that this no zero policy is a BIG deal. It can mean the difference between an F and a D or an A and a B.......or valedictorian and salutatorian.
.....and by the way, parents don't generally speak out unless a situation affects their child negatively and directly, and the principal or county official hasn't already accomodated their wishes.
I get what you are saying, so basically a studen't have 2 do anything and can still pass, which is VERY unfair to the students that really do the work and are interested in getting an education. I still applaud mrs cain and any other teacher who are to make sure a student who wants to learn get a good education. I think she should continue to fight this thing and not let the school system send our kids into the corporate world without a proper eduction. And any other educator out there who is going thru the same thing should speak out on what's right
ReplyDeleteWOW what a mess. Just for clarity, substitutes are often given access to a teacher's grade book to take roll and enter assignments. My concern is if this teacher left on maternity leave before the school year ended,the long term sub is offer left with the resposibility of grading assigments and those grades are at the sub's disgression. Was this teacher fired for changing grades or not doing a goog job? Some students say was not a teacher.
ReplyDeleteThe sub uses the teachers log-in ID. Yes the sub can enter grades but can't change a teachers original grade without the knowledge or consent of that teacher. The problem came in when the sub change some of the students grades that she had orginally given. When she went to the principle about it, he told do not change them back because its not worh the fight. Now mind you, when the sub changed the grades, some students averages went down while others went up. Some student who grades went up were either absent the day of the originail assignment was given. She was not fired for changing grades, they had already told her contract would not be renewed before the maternity leave. Plus they ( Dunson, May & Baker) were upset that she would not bow down to giving students grades that they did not deserve, also she wasn't fallen for their scare tactics. DCSS lost a great teacher but what they did do is keep teachers who could be bullied and who are just here for a check and have no concern for kids
ReplyDeleteOh I forgot to add that the teacher also sent home to the parents about what was going on and baker and may got mad and sent her to timeout at dunson's office for 2 weeks. While in the mean time the cover-up starts. I really interested in seeing how this is going to play out.
ReplyDeleteI once worked in DCSS at two separate times and can tell you that is what truly happens in these schools. The first school I worked in was SWD and at the time Mr. Henson was the principal along with Dr. Joanne Lottie as an AP. Well, they wanted me to change grades b/c the kids were failing the Chemistry and Physical Science class by saying that I had too many failing grades. Well, I told them that I wouldn't do it and they could change the grades on their own and then I contacted the GAPSC. I left that school and returned about 6 years later to MLK under Mr. Nelloms. Mr. Nelloms was a good principal but many of the veteran teachers did not show him any respect and were very complacent in their positions. I am from South Florida and could not believe that these teachers were okay with not having enough technology in the school, etc. Well, I left MLK after one year and was by a parent a year later about changing her son's grade so that he could get a HOPE Scholarship. I only agreed to change the grade after some research but I gave him the lowest possible grade in that range. Mind you, I never completed any paperwork or anything. Also, I worked in the same department as Ms. Cain. Do you know that teachers would read the questions to the GHSGT prior to administering the tests to students and discuss the questions with other teachers in front of students! Madness!
ReplyDeleteI recall something else about grade changing at SWD. When Tim Freeman, the son of the former superintendent, was the Area Director for SWD, he was sanctioned by Professional Standards for improperly changing a student's grade in a math class. I think he was placed on a year's probation. Children who attended SWD always complained that certain students/parents could PAY some administrative assistant to go into the AS400 and change grades. That is what gossip has, I have no proff of that.
ReplyDeleteOh Gene Walker, you caused a mess...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atlantaunfiltered.com/2009/09/29/high-court-dekalb-voters-must-approve-arts-center-bonds-sembler-too/
High court: DeKalb voters must approve arts center bonds (Sembler, too?)
Henighan also has an interesting spin on the subject from Atlanta Unfiltered.
ReplyDeletehttp://dunwoodynorth.blogspot.com/2009/09/dekalb-falcons-in-sembler-stadium-item.html
DeKalb Falcons in Sembler Stadium? Item may be up for discussion on Thursday in Doraville.