Why am I being forced to give minimum grades for missing work?
Districts and central administration are pressuring teachers to assign minimum scores like 50 percent for uncompleted student work. This administrative mandate leaves educators feeling so frustrated that they are considering changing schools or leaving the teaching profession entirely.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1hoping the teachers union fights the policy during contract negotiationsDid this help you?
- 2putting in a zero anyway and letting administration deal with the consequencesDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Let’s say I give a 10 question assignment worth 10 points. Fairly self explanatory. Kid A spends class making paper airplanes and turns nothing in. He gets a 5/10. Kid B Tries his best but only gets 5 questions right. He also gets a 5/10? Kid C Tries his best but only gets 3. Does he also get a 5/10? Or do I inflate them? Is that fair to the student who gets a 7/10?”source ↗
“Why can’t I grade something a 0? They did nothing, the lowest I can give them is a 1.5.”source ↗
“If our grading scale starts at 1, why can’t I give them a 1 for zero effort or understanding.”source ↗
“It’s absolutely ridiculous to me and I’ll change districts, or even careers if it means not teaching in a district where there’s a minimum score like that.”source ↗
“My district just implemented minimum scores. Not officially of course, just pressure from central admin to principals on having it be a school policy.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 8Why won't students do the reading assignments?
- 2How to grade trash student work without sugarcoating it
- 10How to grade open-ended assignments and tests faster
- 5How to handle students asking for deadline extensions
- 6Why am I passing homework but failing quizzes?
- 4Why do my child's school grades make no sense?