My 5th grade son has NLD, and for the first half of this year had a very (overly) demanding teacher. (we have recently switched his class and things are going much better now) In the old class, he was unable to do the quantity of homework assigned, and in compliance with his IEP, it was modified to an amount that he could finish. (sort of) He has been going for after school “homework help” 3 days a week, and I have slogged through the rest of it with him every day. He has _never_ not turned in an assignment, although in a couple of instances when his SPED teacher didn’t remember to modify his math homework, I did it for her, the same way she did it every other day, (half of each type of problem) and checked with her later. She said it was fine that I had done this.
He switched classes near the end of the marking period, and his report card was completed by the old teachers. I noticed that on his report card, under the categories of “completes homework assignments” and “completes long-term assignments” he recieved mars or 2 (usually) rather than 1 (consistently).
I know this isn’t a big deal, particularly now that he’s not even in that class any more. But I’m wondering. If a child has an IEP which specifically states that homework will be modified, and he consistently completes all the modified homework, often working much longer than his peers to get this done, should he be marked down just because the homework is modified? This doesn’t seem right to me, and if it is standard practice, I wonder how it will affect his grades as he progresses into middle school and high school.
Karen
Re: Homework Modification and Grades
YOu’re right… but this is definitely not a battle worth fighting. THere are too many other fronts out there. *That* grade won’t affect his middle and high school grades — those teachers and their grades will. It’s not a “standard” practice — a little too common, though. I might address it with teachers using that as an example before the fact so they think it through.
Re: Homework Modification and Grades
Thanks. I have no intention of challenging his grades… there’s absolutely no point in it, where he’s now with a new set of teachers, and having no trouble completing the assigned homework WITHOUT modification. (now where was the problem in the other class… was it my kid, or the teaching practices? ;-)
I just wanted to know for future reference, when we get to the stage where grades DO matter, what the legalities are in a situation like this.
The funny thing is that my son is obsessive about turning in work, not being late for school, etc. He is SO rule-driven that he will tie himself in knots to get something done when it’s supposed to be. Extended time on projects wouldn’t work for him, because he’d be in such a state over it being late that he wouldn’t be able to do any quality work on it anyway.
Karen
Re: Homework Modification and Grades
Karen, Is this taking place at the Montessori school? If so, it’s time to remind those teachers of what Montessori is all about :o)
Good news/ bad news
Unfortunately this is a very grey area — as inclusion becomes more prevalent, this issue is coming up more and more often. In general, teachers can grade as they wish; how closely that is scrutinized varies a lot from place to place. (I’d imagine in competitive districts teachers have to dot more t’s and cross more eyes, as it were — but that atmosphere would make it more likely that they would be pressured to differentiate in a negative way if a student had accommodations or modifications.)
Fortunately the IEP is a legal document and when the time comes, I’d address the issue there. I’d be thinking of ways to make it clear just what the kiddo was learning from assignments — hey, you want that anyway, as one of the big problems with many ‘accommodations” is that they amount to getting someone to “help” the student by spoon-feeding them material to make it look as if they’re “succeeding” in the regular classroom. It takes a lot of time and really doesn’t help anybody. If you have the time and energy you could pretty much design the curriculum/syllabus…
Re: Homework Modification and Grades
I agree it’s not right but these can be fuzzy areas. One always hesitates to make a fuss about small matters but certainly you would be right to ask these questions for the future. If your son fulfills the requirements, however modified, he should be given the highest mark as he has done what he is supposed to.
Re: Homework Modification and Grades
No… Unfortunately, Montessori ends in 4th grade in our school system, and he’s in 5th. The teacher who ggave him these grades is about as un-Montessori as you can get. Fortunately, the teachers for class we have switched him into are much kinder and more supportive. He’s more relaxed, and (funnily enough) is getting more work done more easily as a reasult.
Karen
Re: Good news/ bad news
It’s because it’s so hard to tell from report cards how a child is progressing that we asked for educational testing to be done this year. We just weren’t comfortable that he was really learning what he needed to learn. The testing has been done, but I’m still waiting for the meeting to go over the results.
Karen
Karen, I know what you mean. I asked a similar question just before you. I agree with your view. I think some of these “hard” teachers don’t realize what these kids go through and think being fair is giving everyone the same treatment grading wise. If the modifications are made and he does all of the assignments then he should have consistently marked on his card. I have teachers that hand out difficult assignments, they are not always modified, so my students fail classes because they don’t do any of the assignment. right now we are working on system where if I sign the paper, even if the assignment isn’t all the way finished, the student will get full credit. I was wondering if it was put on the report card that the assignments have been modified, my students would have a better chance to get good grades, because they rarely, if ever are on the honor roll. Which is a shame because many try hard but fail to turn in assignments because of what I mentioned before. Sounds like you know what your doing and you are correct in your thoughts. I wish people would just understand what it is like for these kids. Hope I helped, Rebecca