Imagine reading the stats of a baseball game three weeks after its already happened. The importance and relevance no longer applies. The same applies for teachers imputing students grades, they should be done promptly. To keep up with  grades students have Skyward, an online grade book accessible by students, teachers and parents. Teachers, however, play a big part in Skyward. They are responsible for imputing student’s grades, along with updating them weekly. At Hagerty it is the expectation that grades are updated by every Friday.

However, an issue occurs when teachers are not efficient in imputing grades. Without many grades imputed, it is hard for students to pull up their grades, leaving them to sit at a letter grade that could affect their GPA in a negative way.  This becomes aggravating and stressful on the students who are still trying to pull up their grades with everyday assignments.

For those wishing to go to college, admission is highly based off of grades and GPA. Students depend on Skyward to ensure they are meeting those.

It also creates an issue with  parents, because they get concerned when their children have bad grades with few assignments in the gradebook. Worried about their GPA because students aren’t allowed to walk at graduation with a 2.0 or below, not putting in grades causes parents to have to email and check up on teachers much more and gets students in trouble with their parents.

Skyward allows for teachers to insert spots for assignments without yet putting in the grade each student received. This worries parents because it appears that the students are missing or have not yet turned in assignments, which is often not the case.

Having the Skyward app on cell phones allows for the checking of grades at any time desired.  Although it only allows students to see their grades, leaving the responsibility of their grades in the teachers hands.

For some teachers, updating Skyward every day is a difficult task, seeing they have lives and other priorities such as their families.  However, a teacher’s responsibility is to enter grades promptly. Some assignments do require more time to grade, however, every assignment should be imputed within a couple weeks to ensure the students grade is correctly reflecting how they are doing in the class. Just as the students have a deadline for turning in assignments, so should teachers. When multiple weeks of work are put into the gradebook at once this can easily drop a student’s grade fast without warning, and  this isn’t fair.

Just as it is unacceptable for me to turn in an assignment a week later because of volleyball games, it is not right for teachers to input an assignment weeks after it being turning in.

Also, when teachers put in a bunch of work at the end of the quarter as a result of not entering them previously throughout the quarter it doesn’t allow the student  time to pull it up, leaving them with an undesirable grade.

Teachers who input grades right after the collection of an assignment or immediately following the grading process help the student understand where they are  academically in the class and help them make adjustments to help them succeed, such as getting a tutor or extra help.
Updating Skyward should be a priority in the responsibility of being a teacher. To ensure a student’s current grade is reflective of their actual assignments in the class.