Teachers Must Update Their Gradebooks
Too many teachers are waiting until the last day of the quarter to input grades and this is completely unfair to students.
A gradebook from a student on December 10 showing how nothing at all has been submitted for classes, yet it has been 5 weeks since the 2nd quarter started.
N/A. That is what appears in way too many student gradebooks as of December 11, a full five weeks into the second quarter. This means that not even the assignments have been entered into a student’s gradebook, let alone the grade for that assignment.
We have 13 actual school days left in the first semester and only 11 left in which assignments can be due, yet teachers and administrators have not done their job this quarter by ensuring we know where we stand with a grade in Phoenix.
Students are supposed to have a decent understanding of their grades for the quarter and thus their semester grades. Yet, this is not the case. It has become almost normal with distance learning for teachers to put in one or even no grades in a student’s grade book until the last weekend before grades are due. This is not right. And it needs to stop.
Out of forty-eight students’ grade books we examined, forty-two have a class in which their teacher has yet to put in a grade in the grade book. Four students have three classes with no grades and ten students with two classes. Where is the administration in checking this? Whatever happened to actual interim grades? 
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This is irresponsible. Students are entitled to know how they are performing in a class before the final day of the quarter. It leads to unnecessary stress for the students. No student – whether they are a freshman or a senior – should log into the grade book and wonder if their teacher will input grades or what their grade over the course of nine weeks will even be.
What is most concerning is that these are 50% of the semester grades: the grades that change our GPA. These semester grades are being sent to colleges with our admissions hanging in the balance. Don’t seniors have enough stress on their plate? Some seniors are lucky enough to have been accepted to a college but know their semester grades are what that school will see and could rescind the offer.
Imagine being a freshman never having stepped foot in the building, never having met a teacher, being told by parents and the school system that grades matter yet your teacher can’t bother to fill in a grade five weeks into the quarter. The administration doesn’t appear to be checking either to hold those teachers accountable. Does that sound like we are setting our freshmen up for success?
The grade books for all students should absolutely be updated by next Tuesday since teachers have this Monday as a workday. The administration has to ensure that this is complete. It has been a quarter and a half of this irresponsibility on behalf of some of the teachers at Dominion High School and it needs to stop.
