Ah, What The Hell



Here's the memo:

November 26, 2012

 Welcome back from the well-deserved break. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

 Today is the deadline for submission for grade changes for the last marking period. Last week, I sent everyone an email regarding how to change a grade. Please make sure I get the grade change email before 4:00 pm this afternoon.

Grade changes should only be done if you made a mistake. Please do not adjust a grade up or down because a student requested it. And every time you change a grade, you are basically admitting that you made a mistake. All mistakes should be corrected as soon as possible. But if it is not a mistake, please leave the grade the way it is.

Because CUNY changed their criteria in terms of College Readiness, we have to change our plan as well. It used to be that a student scores over 80 on MXRE, MXRG or MXTR and score a 75 or higher on the English Regents, then the student is college ready. If a student scored an 80 or higher on MXRE and 75 or higher on the English Regents ad does not sit for MXRG and MXRT, the student is College-Ready as well. We all know the latter is not true. So, they have changed it so that if a student passes all three math Regents and score a 75 or higher on the English Regents, then the student is College Ready. 

So, instead of notifying all seniors in MRF41 who are passing, we will have to notify those who are border-line passing to retake MXRE in January with the hope that they will score 80 or higher. I will be working on the file and I might need your input if you are teaching MRF41 and its variations.

I urge everyone teaching MEF41 and MEF81 to make sure there are calculators in your classroom on a daily basis. We need to teach them how to use it and the best way is for them to use it in class everyday. I do not have any issues if you are able to convince all your students to buy their own. I have a few boxes available for you. We are required by NYSED to provide a graphing calculator for students to use. Unfortunately, it is not up to us because “We want to teach them responsibility.” or “They should know better than coming to their math class without a calculator!”

 We are looking for a few math teachers to do mediation. It  will be a per-seesion activity and please apply!

Thank you and have a great week!