Rachel sent me a text message saying how upset she was. She was told *that
day* that all of her Continuous Assessment (CASS) marks for Terms 1-3 were
due for grade 10. (CASS are the scores the learners get on worksheets,
quizzes, projects, etc. throughout the terms. I.e. - everything but their
final exams. It makes up a pittance of their end-of-the-year score; CASS for
the three terms gets averaged down to 70, and their final exam is worth 130.
Add them to get 200, then divide by 2 to get their final score out of 100.)
Anyway, I hadn't been told marks were due, so I tried to offer support to
Rachel. She warned me that it was a Regional or perhaps National thing, so
I'd better check. I went to the Principal and he concurred that yes, a form
was due for final CASS, but he wasn't planning on giving us the form until
Friday, the day it was due. Lovely.
I was immediately concerned. The issue here is that we're only 1 week into
term 3, and according to my CASS worksheet for the term, I had 3 different
assignments/quizzes that would make up their T3 score. I already had 1
score from the quiz this week, and it showed improvement overall. I had
been looking forward to seeing what they could do with the other 2
assignments. I asked him if it was OK to put up through T2 on the form,
then at the end of the year incorporate T3 into the final grade. He said
yes.
Friday rolled around and the infamous form requirement was announced at the
morning staff meeting. Pure chaos ensued. The issue for most teachers is
they had no or few marks, period. Plus, they do them all by hand rather
than on excel, so a task of this nature could take hours. So for the most
part, no one taught on Friday. One teacher sprung a test on the grade 10's,
even though it was my period to teach them. (When he planned on marking the
test, I have no idea.) Another teacher had a steady flow of learners to his
desk sifting through their assignments. When one learner had sufficient
marks, he told them to erase their name, put the name of someone else, give
it to them, and send them to see him. 2 grade 10 teachers weren't even at
school, so what happens with their scores is anyone's guess.
For my part, I was growing increasingly suspicious about the T2/T3 question.
The form was by far the most official thing I've seen in this country. It
was a scantron form, pre-filled (typed!) with the learners names, DOBs, and
it said this was their CASS score for the year. So I kept asking, and I
finally got the correct answer. The score provided on the form, is the
score we MUST use out of 70 to add to their final exam of 130. We may not
figure a new 70 score after getting the rest of their T3 marks. And oh,
"didn't you know that we close CASS basically the first week of September?"
I lost it a little. I let a few "This is SOOOOOO RIDICULOUS!" fly, and at
one point I put my fist down on the table and said "NO, this is WRONG!" The
system seems designed to ensure failure.
So I went back to excel...I took the one mark that I had, added a few points
to it and used it for a 2nd mark (the next quiz was going to be open
book/notes). For the 3rd mark I used a score based on effort, not accuracy,
from last term. So my final CASS is mostly based on reality, and I feel OK
about it. In truth, their actual scores are likely to be lower, so they
probably got a little boost. I realize none of it really matters, due to so
much weight being put on the final exam. I can't help but feel frustrated
and sad though, about the whole system.
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