I'm within my last week of student teaching. For 12 weeks now, I have been in full control of my CT's classes. I plan/deliver activities, assign work, and grade them. Well, there is one student in particular who is still enrolled in the class but was never present whatsoever for who knows how long besides for the 15 weeks I've been there. This kid has 39 absences for this final marking period alone. No work has been collected for nor from him whatsoever. So, I've been giving this kid a zero in the grade book for everything I've assigned. Just this evening, I noticed in the online grade book, all the zeros I gave the kid are now just marked as "missing" and he has an 87% average for the class. And I noticed my CT gave the kid a score of 35 out of 40 for an in-class project that he wasn't there for......?? Again this kid is NEVER present! 39+ absences and no work has been collected for nor from him. Is this fair to practically give free grades to a kid who did absolutely nothing for a good 15 weeks? My CT never told me anything...
Make sure that you have ruled out reasons for absences that may not be common knowledge, but valid. I'm thinking medical reasons, family issues or housing issues, or even trouble with the law. See if your CT can fill in the blanks for you.
But despite the reason for the absences,even if it we go to the extreme and say the kid is battling cancer, that's no reason to just make up grades.Excusing work is one thing, but then the student [in my district anyway] would receive a grade of IC (incomplete) for the marking period until sufficient grades are available, OR the student may even be graded EX (exempt) from a particular marking period, and then only the other marking period grades can be used to determine the final average. Just making up a grade, for whatever reason, is falsifying records.
I would give the student an incomplete grade if it was a problem during in a marking period. However, consistent absences throughout the year should result in changing grading system to Pass/Fail for the year. Pass, if met all requirements reasonably. Fail, if very few or no requirements were met. Some teachers simply give a bunch of zeros and the student ends up failing. This should be an option, if truancy/unexcused absences are the reason.
It also could have been a mistake. I’ve written things down wrong or entered them in the computer wrong. I’d mention it just to check. The other day I had a kid score 8.5 out of 10, but the decimal didn’t go in the right place. His 85/100 really skewed his score. Our kids who are truant are in the court system way before that many absences. Check with the truancy person. Also make sure they aren’t a home/health kid. I had one who was on home bound all year. I also taught homebound kids. Sometimes I was the one entering grades.
Could this student have a homebound tutor? The tutor might have collected work and submitted them for grades.
This was the case with one of my students last year; she was medically unable to attend school after the end of October. She worked with a tutor and we were able to obtain grades in several subject areas.
If a student is classified as homeless, it is almost impossible to fail them. They are not help responsible for attendance at all. In some cases, their assignments must be shortened. I had a student who I eventually just learned to give a minimum passing grade on assignments, even if she cheater her way through them or didn't meet the requirements of a passing grade, because it was easier than fighting it. She was going to pass anyway.
Is it fair or appropriate? No it is wrong, wrong, wrong as you can clearly see. The problem though is you are a ST and your CT can override almost anything you do. I remember how incredibly painful this was for me when I was a ST having control over all duties in the classroom including grading. I wish you the best of luck and hope your CT listens to you. I really do feel for you in your situation that I can relate to so well.
It happens.......a lot. I had an all-city all-star football player in my senior English class my first year in the public schools. He missed roughly 145 out of 180 possible classes that year. I failed him, but the principal was furious with me. He took his anger out on me the next four years. The summer school teacher said the kid couldn't even read. A veteran teacher told me it was embarrassment for the school, especially since he had college football scholarship offers. (As a first-year teacher, I had no idea that "it was the way things were done." Maybe if someone had pulled me aside and told me that it would be in my best interests to just pass him, I would've avoided four years of grief.)
