The below letter, deleting pertinent names and locations for obvious reasons, is in the mail to the middle school principal, the Superintendent, and the president of the school board. This in in response to a letter that I refused to sign and send back----the school is no longer going to give students a grade of zero on any assignment, because it can "be devastating to the 6 wks grade". Instead, the student is going to have to do lunchtime detention with the teacher to complete the assignment, and if they do not complete it within 2 detentions, then they have to do afterschool detention until it is completed. I would happily provide the text of the letter the school sent home, but my scanner is s***.
"I have read the letter on zero tolerance of zeros that was sent home to be signed by the students and parents. I am not signing and returning it for several reasons.
I do NOT agree with the decision by the Academic Teams leaders/teachers. I firmly believe that there should be personal responsibility, not bail-outs by the staff. While exceptions to every rule do occur, and should be dealt with on a case by case basis, I do not feel a blanket bail-out should exist. I believe this relieves students of being responsible for doing and turning assigned work in on time. I do not feel this is in their best interests, as they will not be allowed to do this in high school or college. It is giving them a false sense of security, that they will always be given extra time or extra chances on anything, and life is not like that. My children are taught this from an early age, and have had to bear responsibility when, by their fault, they have received zeroes or lower grades due to an assignment not being done as it should.
I find this policy to be unacceptable for that and also for the fact for many students, the school bus is their only way home from school. Should it get to the point that a child should be forced to attend after school detention to avoid the zero, then how do they get home? Many parents work, and may not be able to get away to ensure their child gets home.
I have talked about this policy change with several parents as well as those in the workforce and those involved in higher education, most notably a Marshall professor with 25 years of college-level teaching experience. All have said this policy is a very bad mistake. As stated earlier, there are no do-overs in college. No one is going to check over a student’s shoulders to make sure that he/she is doing their work. It is up to the student. It is called personal responsibility. If a child must receive the zero to get the point across that doing the assigned work is mandatory to pass the class and move on, then so be it. If we do not teach our children this lesson at a young age, they are certainly not going to learn it when they get older. When are they supposed to learn this?
Obviously there are those parents who simply do not care, nor wish to be bothered with the details of their child’s education. Shame on them, but the school system simply cannot afford to pander to the self esteems and fragile egos of students and parents by promoting the “no-zero’s” standard. In doing so, the system is merely protecting it’s own interests, not those of the students, who will one day be forced to realize that the “protection” they were given in middle school is gone and real life is in front of them, and they are not going to be capable of dealing with it. Playing with the numbers to make one’s institution appear to be meeting standards is, simply put, fraud.
I would ask that the committees or whoever made such a decision would rethink it. I am also forwarding a copy of this, as well as the letter that was sent home, to the school board. While I am sure they have had a hand in approving this, I am making them aware of at least this parent’s feelings on this.
Thank you,"
Think about it----how many do-overs do you get in life? How many people----friends, relatives, coworkers, etc., do you know who never had to be responsible for anything growing up , and now are faced with the horrible realization that no one is going to do it for them?
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