There was a time when I would sit anxiously in front of the window and wait for the mailman to deliver the most formidable of all adversaries: my report card.
My efforts to avoid its wrath were pointless because my parents always seemed to find it somewhere. Whether they dug it from the trash can or taped the shredded pieces back together, the report card inevitably ended up in their hands. Even though I was never successful in destroying it, at least in the good old days report cards only came once or twice a quarter, and the fact that they were made of paper made destruction of this burden a possibility.
However, a sharp increase in technology in the past few years brought a new enemy into our lives called Skyward. Now, with just the click of a button parents are able to see every detail of their kids’ grades whenever they want to.
The immediate response to the introduction of this program was pretty predictable; parents thought it was wonderful while students despised the idea. In a letter that science teacher David Reber sent to parents over Skyward he called the program a “mixed blessing,” and I couldn’t agree more.
Although Skyward provides easy access to student information which allows parents to be more informed, it can cause confusion and unnecessary outrage. Teachers often put assignments in the grade book before they have been graded, which causes some parents to believe that their student is receiving an “F” on that particular assignment. Skyward shows details about each assignment such as the amount of points it is worth and the percentage the student received. However, it doesn’t show details about make-up work and pending assignments. Factors such as these can greatly effect what a student’s grade is for the time being, and all teachers work at a different pace to get scores into the grade book.
“Grading is a dynamic process, and these phenomena have always existed,” Reber explains in his letter.
To put it simply, grades aren’t final until the very end of the semester. The commotion that Skyward can cause is often frustrating and downright annoying, and ignorance is bliss until the final report card is sent home. The only way for parents to avoid Skyward chaos is to forget that it exists and just wait for the report card to arrive home the old fashioned way.
