Saturday, October 28, 2006

First Nine Weeks Evaluation

I'm so happy to have an understanding administration this year. I just had my "Why did so many students fail your class?" meeting with my assitant principal. I failed 62.5% of my students, even though I had made the rule never to fail more than one-third of my students. I had to break my rule because the students were not where they should be, and I couldn't justify giving those students passing grades. (Thankfully, the other Algebra teachers either failed just as many students as I did, or they passed just about all their students even though we only had 45% pass the nine weeks test. At least my grades were reflective of their nine weeks test scores.)

My assistant principal actually took the time for me to show him, student by student, that they were not putting forth the effort neccessary for Algebra I. About 10% of my students received zeros for the course because they missed too many days of class. Not only that, I have students that never passed Pre-Algebra that were stuck in my class. At least my grades were reflective of their scores on the nine weeks test.

My assistant principal then came to observe my class with the highest failing average. He wrote a wonderful evaluation, claiming that all students were involved and that he saw "excellent teaching and learning." He seems so supportive of me, and recognizes that I'm doing all that I can for my students. The students are just very under-prepared for this course, and not motivated enough to complete assignments and study outside of the classroom. Hopefully, that will change now that they have failed the first nine weeks.

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