Maintaining the Grades, By Caroline Simpson, Health and Physical Education Teacher, Wilson Central High School

     During the first few weeks some of you will grade assignments and immediately place the grade into the gradebook but as time goes on the system you started seems to grow weak. IEP meetings, PLC meetings, parent meetings, etc. all begin to take up your time that you set aside for grading and it seems to fall on the back burner. I have heard so many teachers talk about the amount of grades they need to input right before report cards go out! I am thinking to myself… “You are just now doing that?!?” It is important to keep up with your grades, not only on your hard copy but also in the computer system. I always shoot for getting my grades in by the end of each week and that is something I stuck by that really helped me. It have also heard the same teachers discuss how a parents continues to contact them to discuss a grade but they haven’t been able to plug in the new grades or make up work that student has completed. This can cause more of a headache compared to just taking time out every week to input the grades. If you student has made up work then input the new grade immediately (if you are at your computer) to keep you from losing it and also to give the student credit for making up the work. I am a high school teacher and sometime students could care less about make up work. When I have students coming in to complete their missed work I am excited to give them credit. We all know those parents that watch their child’s grades like a hawk and email you at the slightest sight of distress on their grade. Eliminate some stress on your part by creating a detailed gradebook and keeping it updated weekly.

     Another area you should add to your everyday routine is attendance. I also keep a hard copy of my classes’ attendance and it really helps when I accidentally hit the wrong button or count someone absent to correct. Another way I help with this problem is giving a form of assessment every day. That allows me to look back on that day’s assignment and see if the person I counted absent completed the assignment. In high school, our attendance plays a role in the student’s exam exemptions. This can create a lot of stress on teachers towards the end of each semester but if you have kept up with attendance electronically and on paper then it takes a lot of that stress away.