Balancing Grace and Expectations: Grading in the Time of COVID

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We're coming to the end of a quarter in my school district, so time for the first of four grade panics we'll see this year. Some of my students did not perform well this past nine weeks, and have low grades to reflect that. 

This isn't a surprise. In 26 years of teaching, I've never had a year without some students who failed to perform. 

The tricky thing right now is ascertaining the reasons. Even trickier than in other years.

Some kids simply didn't do the work. There were no particular obstacles in the way. 

They have the necessary supplies and the teacher provided guidance and opportunities to pursue clarification, but they still didn't turn in the work. They lacked motivation, maybe, or were testing boundaries to see what the penalties might turn out to be, or the siren call of the X-box was louder than anything else they were hearing from their adults. 

Other kids didn't do the work, but there are mitigating circumstances that I am aware of: limited access to the internet, language barriers, instability at home, mental health concerns, non-functioning computers (our district's computers were due to be replaced in August, but we're still waiting on our new ones to arrive, so we're making do with dying and failing machines), or any number of other factors that have been communicated to me by families, students, or other staff at school. 

My students are 12-14 years-old, for the most part. In the best of circumstances, they are in their first years of learning to navigate multiple teachers with disparate ways of doing things, and there will be confusion and mistakes. So, even when things are at their best, there's still an argument for grace, forgiveness, patience, and second chances. 

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We're not in the best of circumstances right now. Even the lucky ones among us are still in the middle of a pandemic, which affects each of us differently. 

The students and their families vary in their comfort with and skill at communicating with the teachers and school. Admitting you are confused and need help requires trust and faith that your admission will meet with kindness and offers of help. Too many families have had negative experiences that have taught them to be wary--rigid teachers, inflexible policies, systemic ignorance of equity issues.

Sometimes school creates trauma, usually unintentionally . . .but intention doesn't matter when a person has already been hurt. And that trauma makes building trust harder for each subsequent educator. 

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So, how do I assign grades fairly?  I ask myself that *all* the time . . .but this year, it's a wider spread consideration. How do I tell if it's fair to give a kid a zero and when I need to offer grace instead because they really are doing the best they can with what they've got right now? 

What I do is have as many conversations as I can. I reach out to children and their families, expressing concern and offering support. 

I've purchased chargers out of my own pocket, helped navigate our district's systems for things like hotspots and replacement equipment, exempted kids from assignments to streamline the work flow, sat in zoom meetings to walk parents and kids through and show them exactly where to go to find resources and how to turn in work. 

I want all my kids to "get there," so I've tried to offer multiple paths that will let kids experience success and build trust in me and in the process so they can keep moving forward, building positive momentum. 

But there are families who don't respond to my queries. Or whose responses are less than forthcoming.

 So, I'll do my best to judge them fairly. I'll look at all the data I have. I'll ask the other adults who work with the child--teachers, the nurse, the office staff--and see if anyone has insight they can share with me. I give the benefit of the doubt and assume good intentions as much as possible. But, in the end, I will assign a grade. That number won't represent the full picture, but it's the system I have to work within. 

If it were up to me, I wouldn't give grades. I'd write a narrative for each kid, summarizing strengths and weaknesses, work ethic and obstacles, and pass that information along to the next educator to help them meet this child where they are and move them forward. But, I've yet to teach anywhere that offered me that option. 

Schooling in America is fond of trying to take a messy, subjective and personal process and boil it down to a number that we claim is objective. Foolish, at least in my opinion, but not something I have the power to change. 

So, fellow teachers, what do you take into account when you're trying to assign a number to a child's progress? How do you try to make it fair and representative of effort and progress? 

And students and families? What purpose do grades serve for you? How do you use that feedback to grow and further your goals?