A question from Jen for the group. It’s about the parent re-education thing:
Ben,
This email, unlike my others, will be short. I’m just so damn tired. I had to make a call to a parent who mentioned he’s on the BOE because he contacted a guidance counselor to discuss his daughter’s grades. My class was the least of his worries but he did have concerns and so I called. Long story short, the call was calm and cordial but the parent was challenging me on the subjectivity of the jGR as well as that he kept calling it a “participation grade”, the lack of paper/pencil assessments and questioning why it’s ok to permit a student to write the listening quizzes.
I kept calm and tried my best to educate him and luckily I have many links on my district web site to direct him to read. He agreed to review the links I suggested about 21st century skills, the jGR rubric and some articles on how a TPRS class is conducted by Carol Gaab and get back to me if he has more questions. The tone of the call seemed to be positive and I feel it went in my favor but just for future reference, how would the PLC suggest responding to these points?
Jen