Kids sharing school grades (with each other)

[SKL]

What do you think of kids blabbing or asking peers about their grades?

This was 100% forbidden when I was in school.  Also it's nobody's business IMO.

My kids have a friend who puts others down about not having near-perfect grades like him.  This boy is 14yo.  Aside from the obvious question of what is wrong with him, why on earth are kids discussing their grades in the first place?  How is that helpful to anyone?

[vonfirmath]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

What do you think of kids blabbing or asking peers about their grades?

This was 100% forbidden when I was in school.  Also it's nobody's business IMO.

My kids have a friend who puts others down about not having near-perfect grades like him.  This boy is 14yo.  Aside from the obvious question of what is wrong with him, why on earth are kids discussing their grades in the first place?  How is that helpful to anyone?

 

It's not a good idea, but was never forbidden when I was in school.

My experience is that kids generally know, even without talking about it.

 

[katilac]

Super common, both now and back in my day. 

I don't see how a school can forbid it, except for hearing it on school grounds. It's their information and they can certainly share it if they want to, and I don't think it's an unusual topic of discussion. School is where they spend the majority of their time. It's a natural enough subject on report card day. If you don't want your kids to participate, or they don't want to participate, come up with some handy phrases to deflect the question and change the subject, but be prepared for other kids to discuss it. 

[Loowit]

It was very common when I was in school, especially in middle school and high school.  We usually would get our report cards the last period of the day and then look at them before taking them home.  Well, until they started mailing them to parents instead, but even then we would talk about them the next day.  But that was a long time ago, not sure how things are now because my kids have never attended school.

I know that DD and her friends discuss grades at college.  It is a pretty close knit group though, and they are very supportive of each other.

I would find it annoying to have kids putting down others, but I don't think it should be a forbidden topic of conversation.

[Farrar]

Obviously it's not okay for kids to put down others over grades (or anything else). And being gossipy or generally overtly competitive about grades is also not great. But I also think there's something unhealthy about being super secretive about them. I'm not saying everyone has to disclose them. But surely there's a healthy balance in there somewhere between public shaming/bullying and acting like a grade is a dark secret. I think it would be weird for good friends not to discuss how they're doing in a class. It's a big part of what's going on in their lives.

[katilac]

1 hour ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Do they still do the whole Honor and Merit Roll thing at Public Schools where they announce it and give certificates for each grading period?

I don't know about certificates or not, but they definitely do honor roll in my area. Edited to add that it's printed in the community news section of the newspaper. 

Edited March 5, 2020 by katilac

[kiwik]

I think it is wrong for the school to make the grades public but if the kids choose to share at the age your kids are it it up to them.

[Reefgazer]

4 hours ago, SKL said:

What do you think of kids blabbing or asking peers about their grades?

This was 100% forbidden when I was in school.  Also it's nobody's business IMO.

My kids have a friend who puts others down about not having near-perfect grades like him.  This boy is 14yo.  Aside from the obvious question of what is wrong with him, why on earth are kids discussing their grades in the first place?  How is that helpful to anyone?

I don't have a problem with it; if someone doesn't want to share their grade, they can refuse.   But I think it's crazy to "forbid" it because such a rule is unenforceable.  I liken it to companies forbidding employees from sharing salary data - unenforceable, and acts as a way to prevent employees from discovering irregularities in pay policies.  

[gardenmom5]

there are a myriad of reasons kids discuss grades. 

some are just "comparing themselves to each other, among kids who have similar ability."   it's a kind of bonding thing.

- and then there are kids who want to tear down others because they think it will boost their egos.  - it's really just an excuse for bullying.

 

 

[Tanaqui]

Quote

Aside from the obvious question of what is wrong with him, why on earth are kids discussing their grades in the first place?  How is that helpful to anyone?

 

The first is unanswerable, but the second should be obvious: kids are discussing their grades because their grades are an interesting topic of discussion that concerns everybody. As for how it is helpful, if we had to restrict our conversation to "helpful" topics we might as well all take a vow of silence here and now.

Me, I don't like to make inherently unenforceable rules like "no discussing your grades". I feel that this sort of thing only undermines my own authority later. I stick to rules I have a half-decent chance of upholding, and have little to no respect for schools/teachers/parents that have a preponderance of unenforceable rules - or a great deal of rules that can be enforced, but only at the expense of exerting an utterly unreasonable amount of control over their kids. These kids are 14. They know their own grades. They're going to talk to each other. If this kid didn't have his own grades to be a snot about he'd be just as bad about something else. If his peers are unable/unwilling to tell him to shut up already, well, they'll just have to listen to him being obnoxious.

[DawnM]

In our district, if someone wants to share, they can, if they don't, they don't.  I haven't seen it a big deal either way, BUT, this 14 year old is too pushy.  Casual discussion is fine, but putting someone down after pushing them to share is not.

[mom@shiloh]

Grades were kept private when I was in school. I'm in my 50's. 

[Carrie12345]

Definitely pretty common when I was in school, particularly high school. But I also had a complex with people thinking I was dumb, so I was very big on blabbing my SATs, which were higher than many of my haters expected. 😉 

[purpleowl]

I think it's fine for kids to celebrate their achievements. You wouldn't think a softball player should keep quiet about how many home runs she had, would you? She worked hard for that, probably adding to a good deal of natural ability, and she achieved stuff. The academically inclined student has done the same thing in a different setting. Now, the strong softball player shouldn't be using her accomplishments as a way to put others down, any more than the strong academic student. Those who put others down will look for ways to do so, though, in whatever medium they can make it happen.

As for my own experience - I definitely remember comparing grades with friends in school. If someone didn't want to share their grade, okay. But most of us did. And we would compare specific answers, too. It was an "iron sharpens iron" setting, for the most part. We could learn from each other.

[Storygirl]

When I was in high school, whenever we got tests back, my friends would talk about how they did. I was always eager to participate in these discussions, because I was a good student, and grades were important to me, and my friends were the same. But I was clueless that I was annoying others, until a friend snapped and told me that I just wanted to compare grades, so that I could know that my scores were the best. That was not my intent, and I was hurt, but I learned to keep my grades to myself after that.

So I would guess this annoying boy could be similar. These kids are all students together in the same classes, and how they are doing in the classes is a normal thing to want to talk about. He may not be aware that it is bothering the other kids. You could suggest that when he asks about grades, your kids could say something like, "I've decided not to talk about my grades any more, but I hope you did well."

Edited March 5, 2020 by Storygirl

[regentrude]

When I was in school, we all knew each others grades because those were called out loud. When I was in college, exam results were posted on a paper sheet in a glass case in the hallway. Now we have to bend over backwards with FERPA - but my students show each other the exams.

I actually find talking about grades useful, because the individual grade does not tell the student how they are performing relative to the cohort (unless they are given a grade distribution). A 75 on an exam can mean "I'm doing ok", "I've bummed this and have to study harder" or "Wow, I have the highest grade and am doing really well".  The grade alone is useless information without context.

Also, why should students not be allowed to talk about their academic achievements? Swim and run times or goals scored aren't kept confidential. Why is it ok to know how a person does as an athlete, but not academically? If kids spend 8 hours a day at school, of course grades are an important topic of conversation.

You are conflating two topics. Talking about grades and being a  jerk.

Edited March 5, 2020 by regentrude

[regentrude]

15 minutes ago, HeighHo said:

It helps the student whose grade was figured incorrectly.  

Good point. In my 500 student course, 10+ people are involved in exam grading, so of course mistakes happen occasionally. Usually these come to light because the student has seen the exam of a friend that was scored differently.

[Junie]

41 minutes ago, regentrude said:

When I was in school, we all knew each others grades because those were called out loud. When I was in college, exam results were posted on a paper sheet in a glass case in the hallway. Now we have to bend over backwards with FERPA - but my students show each other the exams.

I actually find talking about grades useful, because the individual grade does not tell the student how they are performing relative to the cohort (unless they are given a grade distribution). A 75 on an exam can mean "I'm doing ok", "I've bummed this and have to study harder" or "Wow, I have the highest grade and am doing really well".  The grade alone is useless information without context.

Also, why should students not be allowed to talk about their academic achievements? Swim and run times or goals scored aren't kept confidential. Why is it ok to know how a person does as an athlete, but not academically? If kids spend 8 hours a day at school, of course grades are an important topic of conversation.

You are conflating two topics. Talking about grades and being a  jerk.

I completely agree with this.

I think that sometimes it is helpful to know how you measure up to other students.  Sometimes it helped me to work harder; sometimes it gave me a confidence boost.  And in the case of college algebra it confirmed what I already knew (that I was terrible at it).  :)

 

[Tree Frog]

9 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Do they still do the whole Honor and Merit Roll thing at Public Schools where they announce it and give certificates for each grading period?

In our large Texas ISD, yes, they give these awards. Every semester there's an evening ceremony celebrating them. We went to the first one when we first moved here and didn't know what it was. We skipped all the others. I think the certificates were given to the kids in class the following day as I saw a couple of them come home, but most were thrown away. I'd never heard of these until we moved here; the school I grew up in had honor roll, but no ceremony.

[SKL]

Interesting that apparently most people freely discussed grades throughout school.  As a kid, I was threatened with punishment if I blabbed or asked anyone about their grades.  The only time I knew was if someone burst into tears over a really bad one.  Also my parents taught us it was obnoxious to blab about doing better than others (I was generally an excellent student academically).

It wasn't until grad school that I had people ask me my grade, and I was taken aback.  I gave some vague answer such as "I was satisfied with my grade."  A friend later told me that all the foreign students assumed that meant I was embarrassed about poor results.

My K-8 did not have any kind of public ranking, honor roll, etc.  (This was in the 1970s, Lutheran school.)  My high school had honor/merit roll.  At the end of 4 years there was a class ranking, but I don't remember if they gave the names or just the GPAs.  (Funny thing, when my brother and I took the ACT, they announced the top 3 scorers in our school, which included both my brother and me.  The student body about fainted when they learned we were smart, LOL.)  In college they had the Dean's list.  There was no sharing of specific grades or GPAs.  In law school, they would post the exam grades by number, not name.

I don't mind kids knowing the general range of grades and where they stand in that range.  And yes, they will pretty much know who's doing great and who isn't, regardless.  But is it really a foreign idea that this kind of conversation is likely to hurt feelings?  In my kid's case, she turns around and counters with something else that nobody needs to hear.  I'm working on teaching her how to re-direct the conversation instead.

Edited March 5, 2020 by SKL

[vonfirmath]

4 minutes ago, SKL said:

Interesting that apparently most people freely discussed grades throughout school.  As a kid, I was threatened with punishment if I blabbed or asked anyone about their grades.  The only time I knew was if someone burst into tears over a really bad one.  Also my parents taught us it was obnoxious to blab about doing better than others (I was generally an excellent student academically).

It wasn't until grad school that I had people ask me my grade, and I was taken aback.  I gave some vague answer such as "I was satisfied with my grade."  A friend later told me that all the foreign students assumed that meant I was embarrassed about poor results.

My K-8 did not have any kind of public ranking, honor roll, etc.  (This was in the 1970s, Lutheran school.)  My high school had honor/merit roll.  At the end of 4 years there was a class ranking, but I don't remember if they gave the names or just the GPAs.  (Funny thing, when my brother and I took the ACT, they announced the top 3 scorers in our school, which included both my brother and me.  The student body about fainted when they learned we were smart, LOL.)  In college they had the Dean's list.  There was no sharing of specific grades or GPAs.  In law school, they would post the exam grades by number, not name.

I don't mind kids knowing the general range of grades and where they stand in that range.  And yes, they will pretty much know who's doing great and who isn't, regardless.  But is it really a foreign idea that this kind of conversation is likely to hurt feelings?  In my kid's case, she turns around and counters with something else that nobody needs to hear.  I'm working on teaching her how to shut the conversation down instead.

 

I think shutting down conversations that could potentially hurt feelings just leads to people being afraid to talk to each other at all (Or at least to branch out and talk to new people) It is much healthier to teach people that they don't have to answer every question asked and they are responsible for their own feelings/reactions. If someone asks something you don't want to talk about, redirect or refuse to answer. And don't care if that other kid takes their own interpretation from your redirect, whether it is true or not. That's on them not on you.

 

Edited March 5, 2020 by vonfirmath

[SKL]

2 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

 

I think shutting down conversations that could potentially hurt feelings just leads to people being afraid to talk to each other at all (Or at least to branch out and talk to new people) It is much healthier to teach people that they don't have to answer every question asked and they are responsible for their own feelings/reactions. If someone asks something you don't want to talk about, redirect or refuse to answer. And don't care if that other kid takes their own interpretation from your redirect, whether it is true or not. That's on them not on you.

 

Right - I meant redirect the conversation.

[HS Mom in NC]

13 hours ago, SKL said:

What do you think of kids blabbing or asking peers about their grades?

This was 100% forbidden when I was in school.  Also it's nobody's business IMO.

 

!?!?!?!?!?!??!?
Where did you go to school and when? I went to school in AZ in the US and graduated from high school in 1991. 

Yes, some kids talked about their grades and some didn't.  I can't imagine how a school could possibly enforce a gag order on grades, and can't think of a reason why they would want to. Sometimes grades were posted publicly.  My kids had college classes where grades were publicly posted.  We had honor rolls and such. Parents drive around with "My kid is an honor roll student at nameofschool" bumper stickers.

Yes, it's obnoxious to go around bragging about it, but if someone asks how school's going it's perfectly acceptable to state their grades and grad point average.  How is school going is typical making conversation with kids talk, so I wouldn't be in a dither about it.  Some kids would be more vague and general, but to each his own.

[SKL]

3 minutes ago, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

Yes, it's obnoxious to go around bragging about it, but if someone asks how school's going it's perfectly acceptable to state their grades and grad point average.  How is school going is typical making conversation with kids talk, so I wouldn't be in a dither about it.  Some kids would be more vague and general, but to each his own.

Well, as a parent, I find that having both high achievers and strugglers is helpful in this regard.  I have long since stopped telling people how great anyone is doing in school, and I cringe when I see others doing it - assuming that they too will stop when/if they find one of their kids struggling.  No, I don't agree that it's perfectly acceptable to state grades and GPA when asked conversationally how things are going.  There are so many better answers IMO.

[catz]

I don't know how you forbid it.  Kids are curious and many tweens and teens are self absorbed.  I totally agree it's nobody's business.  And this goes for anything where a young person might be looking for an opportunity to brag.  I've always instilled in my kids that everyone is on their own journey making their own way and life is not a competition and they've been mostly homeschooled.  So I don't think my kids really got it when other kids start jockeying for bragging rights in their early teens.  They'd be like "so what?  Good for you?".  And I rarely think kids are malicious.  They are just still learning good social boundaries.  

I have also taken the time to work on responses with my teen when they seem floundered by stuff like this.  If 14 year old starts bragging and asking I would tell my kid to shut him down and hopefully turn the conversation "I don't discuss grades.  But what did you think of the science homework last night ".  

I don't have an issue with honor rolls, etc.  But I also think kids should be regularly reminded of polite conversation and social boundaries.  No one likes someone bragging 24-7.  Some kids pick that up faster than others.  

Oh on the conversation about grades and how school is going.  Asking someone directly their grades is pretty rude IMO.  If someone asks how school is going, that is just a nicety and no, I don't think stating your GPA is the best response.  A better answer would be "Great.  I love science and recess.".   It's like the homeschoolers who get asked "what grade is your kid in" and they go into a 5 minute monologue about reading and math levels.  There are plenty of kids at a variety of levels in a B&M school too and yet those kids don't go on and on when asked that simple question.  People are just curious about age really.  If someone really wants to know the ins and outs about how we homeschooled GT kids, that is a different question.  

Edited March 5, 2020 by FuzzyCatz

[JustEm]

Hmm, I can't imagine what the big deal is. We talked about our grades all the time in middle school, high school, and college. It was never to brag. Usually it was to confirm that our efforts studying together helped everyone. And when it didn't help everyone we'd help figure out what part the person struggled with. But it also helped us figure out why the one we got wrong was actually wrong or why it was marked incorrectly. But there was also an element of healthy competition. My friends were all at the top of our classes like me and striving to out perform each other helped all of us do better without adding any real pressure because we were all supportive of each other and didn't make it negative competition.

[HS Mom in NC]

23 minutes ago, SKL said:

Well, as a parent, I find that having both high achievers and strugglers is helpful in this regard.  I have long since stopped telling people how great anyone is doing in school, and I cringe when I see others doing it - assuming that they too will stop when/if they find one of their kids struggling.  No, I don't agree that it's perfectly acceptable to state grades and GPA when asked conversationally how things are going.  There are so many better answers IMO.

I'm not part of that mindset that thinks we have to keep secret when some are doing well in one area just because some others are not doing well in that area.  Everyone struggles in life in some way and will do better in other aspects of life.  Some people are more successful in some aspects than other people. I think it's setting the strugglers up for more problems when we try to shelter them from that reality and tip toe around them.

I have 3 kids from all over the board with successes and struggles academically and personally.  I had my own serious academic struggles and personal struggles too. It's a far better approach to teach kids to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn and measure their own today against their own yesterday and set their goals for their own tomorrow.   Teach them that they can take great pride in whatever outcome there is when they work diligently at something because that IS succeeding in school, even if it's a lower letter grade. That's what strugglers are missing-people acknowledging that they ARE succeeding in school, they're jut not getting higher grades.  It's actually pretty crappy that most people equate only high grades with school success. I know, I was that kid in math and the adults were clueless. A trying struggler's C or D can be just as much, sometimes even more,  of an accomplishment as someone else's easily gotten A, but it's a very rare adult who can grasp, much less articulate it in front of others.  The diligence itself is the far more important thing, regardless of the letter grade outcome. But you have to be more prone to individualistic thinking instead of collective thinking that worries about how you stack up to others. I personally see it as a maturation issue-If we're still judging ourselves by peers in high school, we're starting to fall emotionally developmentally behind.  If we're still doing it in adulthood, it's time for professional counseling.

I'm not the slightest bit bothered by someone saying, "I got straight As!" when I ask them, "So how is school these days?" Good for them.  If another kid doesn't want to talk about their grades when I ask about school, that's fine with me too, there are different of aspects of school a kid can talk about. My niece likes to talk about choir or she'll say she doesn't like school, but her church youth group is doing a fun event that she'll describe in detail.    One of my nephews likes to talk about his new friends at school that he plays Dungeons and Dragons with. The neighbor kid will talk about her school soccer team. They can change the subject too, it's up to them, but I'm not going to avoid the standard chit chat like they're emotionally unstable.  And when someone who had been struggling in a class tells me they barely passed I'm just as openly thrilled for them as I am for a kid who's excited about making it to the honor roll because I know as much or more work might've gone into barely passing, and that's worth acknowledging.

If we acknowledged each accomplishment we could validate kids of all abilities and model the kind of behavior we want to see in the future.   Some people can't even handle being on social media because they haven't been taught or figured out  that it isn't a competition among FB friends, it's a highlight reel for each individual.  Adults should honestly be able to say: You went Europe?  Great! You're having a bonfire in your backyard?  Lovely! You're binge watching your favorite show with your cat? Delightful! Your kid got into an Ivy League school?  Hooray! Your kid finished cosmetology school?  Yes! Your kid is a month sober?  Fantastic!  You started your business? Yay!  You picked up some extra shifts?  Awesome! You've got an interview at Target? Awesome! You bought a Hummer? Cool! You cycle to work at Subway? Great! Your kid got certified as a welder? Great! Your kid is working retail? Yay!

[Library Momma]

4 hours ago, HeighHo said:

It helps the student whose grade was figured incorrectly.  Seen plenty of times when the essay quality was scored with the wrong rubric...and students learned to go talk to the teacher about it rather than stay home and cry.

It also helps keep the parents from cheating badly.  Its quite common here for extra credit to be offered...but only to part of the class.  That results in students who earn the state scholarship for highest Regents Exam average never being in the top ten for class rank.

It also uncovers student cheating....my kid received the lowest grade of his life in eighth grade. At conference, I was shrugged off as a tiger mom.  I pressed, and found out two grades were recorded as zeros.  The teacher did not have a secure chain to pass papers in, and the cheaters had not passed my child's papers forward.  We of course had documented issues with the same cheaters in previous grades, so were able to get that resolved quickly.  (note: 8th grade here has certain classes for high school credit, so no need to have the gpa tanked at the beginning because of cutthroat competitors).

It's lovely living on the east coast amongst people who would rather cheat than put effort in and actually learn the material.

 

Well I live on the east coast and my kids never seems to have the same experiences that yours do.  Everything is on-line so if assignments were missing you would see in Power School or whichever program your school system uses that those assignments are missing.  I don't think kids talking about grades with each other is the way to uncover discrepancies.  And someone stealing another students assignment so it can't be handed in.  I can't even imagine that - Those students would be expelled.   

My kids are now both in high school and say that kids don't really discuss grades that often.  Like anything some are more prone to doing so more than others.  There are times, like after a particularly difficult test that everyone might compare notes.   

There is honor roll here and high honors, but it is something that shows up at the bottom of your report card.  In Middle school there is a ceremony at the end of the year with certificates but nothing for high school.  It really doesn't matter when comparing students across the board.  You can have a student with a 4.0 GPA in all honors and AP classes and a student with a 4.0 GPA in remedial classes.  They would have both made high honors but comparing the two is apples to oranges.

 

[Sneezyone]

We always talked about our grades on specific assignments, not always our overall grades. By high school you could guesstimate based on class rank which people also shared from time to time. DDs friends talk about grades but almost always to complain about them. DD usually lies so as not to make her friends feel bad. They’re on to her tho b/c she keeps getting certificates at the end of season sports award banquets. 🤣 At DSs middle school honor roll, principals honor roll, and superintendent’s honor roll names are displayed on a big TV screen at the front of the school every quarter. They hand out ice cream sandwiches when you make the Principal’s list too. DS only discusses his grades with us tho. He listens when others discuss theirs b/c he WANTS to compare just not share.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Sneezyone

[Sneezyone]

30 minutes ago, HeighHo said:

 

If your children are going to a school where they can be expelled, they are in private school.  My children attended public. Yes, there is a big difference between public and private...wealth buys a lot of grades when switching to underresourced public high school.

Hard to hide grades here......scholar-athlete is publicized, although NHS, honor roll, and class rank are not.

 

Both of mine attend public schools and, as I said, honor roll students are recognized on a big TV screen each quarter. At the high school, NHS inductees are recognized on the daily school TV broadcast, so says DD. The scholar athletes are only recognized during the end of season banquets. I think any student in any school can be expelled.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Sneezyone

[Library Momma]

48 minutes ago, HeighHo said:

 

If your children are going to a school where they can be expelled, they are in private school.  My children attended public. Yes, there is a big difference between public and private...wealth buys a lot of grades when switching to underresourced public high school.

Hard to hide grades here......scholar-athlete is publicized, although NHS, honor roll, and class rank are not.

 

My kids are in public school.  I don't think I've encountered a public school system here where students cannot be expelled.  They usually end up at parochial schools or taking advantage of home tutors that the school system must provide if they do not find an alternative option.  

[katilac]

10 hours ago, mom@shiloh said:

Grades were kept private when I was in school. I'm in my 50's. 

I'm in my 50s and grades were not kept private at my schools. How were they kept private? Rules, societal pressure, a mix? Every kid is going to know their own grades, and it's pretty much impossible to prevent sharing (if the kids want to share). Or do you just mean grades weren't posted? What about honor roll? 

5 hours ago, SKL said:

Interesting that apparently most people freely discussed grades throughout school.  As a kid, I was threatened with punishment if I blabbed or asked anyone about their grades.  

My K-8 did not have any kind of public ranking, honor roll, etc.   

But is it really a foreign idea that this kind of conversation is likely to hurt feelings?  In my kid's case, she turns around and counters with something else that nobody needs to hear.  I'm working on teaching her how to re-direct the conversation instead.

Honestly, I don't think anyone's overall grades are a big surprise to anyone on report card day. They've been in a classroom together for nine weeks, they've had each other ranked pretty accurately since week 3. I don't think that the mere discussion of grades should lead to hurt feelings. If someone is taunting or bullying, that's of course wrong, but it's not wrong because it's grades that are under discussion. Likewise, bullying a kid who struck out in the baseball game is wrong, but there's nothing inherently wrong with discussing how players did in the game. 

Wow about your k-8 -  I don't think I've ever encountered a school that didn't have honor roll! And I go back just as far as you, lol. 

Who threatened you with punishment? What kind of punishment? 

5 hours ago, SKL said:

Well, as a parent, I find that having both high achievers and strugglers is helpful in this regard.  I have long since stopped telling people how great anyone is doing in school, and I cringe when I see others doing it - assuming that they too will stop when/if they find one of their kids struggling.  

In your daughter's case, I really don't understand why she would be hurt or embarrassed - you said in the other thread that she maintains mostly B's. I guess everything's relative, because that doesn't even meet my definition of a struggling student. I know she works hard, I know homework takes a long time, I know she has some accommodations, but that's true for a lot of students who aren't getting anywhere near B grades. A 'B' is a good grade! A 'C' is an average grade. 

Do you think the same way about sports, that no one should talk about how anyone is doing well in sports? Or at work? Because I'm happy to hear that your son made the honor roll, or your daughter made All Stars, or you just got a big promotion. 

4 hours ago, HeighHo said:

I guess you didn't trade papers and grade each other's spelling test.   

I've been working in two different high schools for the last two months, and can confirm that trading papers is still a thing. 

[TechWife]

I have no idea why it would be forbidden for kids to share their grades with one another. It's their personal information and if they want to tell someone, they can. There are a lot of common sense reasons this might not be good for kids to do, but the problem isn't that the kid who is being picked on divulged his grade. The problem is that he is being picked on. If it wasn't about grades, kids who do that kind of thing find reasons to pick on other kids. It isn't about the grades, it's about wanting power over someone else. That's the problem that needs to be addressed, not the sharing of the grades.

 

[hippiemamato3]

I think students have always compared grades. I don't see it as a big deal. 

Edited March 6, 2020 by hippiemamato3
left out words

[Frances]

10 hours ago, HeighHo said:

 

It also helps keep the parents from cheating badly.  Its quite common here for extra credit to be offered...but only to part of the class.  That results in students who earn the state scholarship for highest Regents Exam average never being in the top ten for class rank.

It's lovely living on the east coast amongst people who would rather cheat than put effort in and actually learn the material.

So parents are requesting and teachers are granting extra credit only for certain students? And when students find out others are being offered extra credit that they aren’t, then they have their parents request it too? Why would a principal allow this?

Edited March 6, 2020 by Frances

[historically accurate]

21 hours ago, SKL said:

What do you think of kids blabbing or asking peers about their grades?

This was 100% forbidden when I was in school.  Also it's nobody's business IMO.

My kids have a friend who puts others down about not having near-perfect grades like him.  This boy is 14yo.  Aside from the obvious question of what is wrong with him, why on earth are kids discussing their grades in the first place?  How is that helpful to anyone?

Um, back in the 80s and 90s, the fact that I got all A's was posted in the local newspaper. so everyone could talk about it LOL They listed all kids on the High Honor Roll (4.0 gpa) and Honor Roll (3.5 gpa - 3.9) every 9 weeks. My grade school didn't have grades, but starting in middle school, we were graded and ranked accordingly. In college, I had 2 different professors who hung up the grades from tests on the bulletin board by name. One of those college class listings was very helpful to my anxiety as I was only pulling an 80% (and consequently freaking out because I was so close to a C), and it turned out to be the highest average in the class. 

Being a jerk about people's grades is an entirely different scenario than knowing how classmates are doing academically. I don't see how you can forbid it, and I don't really see the point of forbidding it. Kids usually know who are the A students and who are the D students, just like they know who are the athletes and who are the klutzes.

[EKS]

18 hours ago, kiwik said:

I think it is wrong for the school to make the grades public but if the kids choose to share at the age your kids are it it up to them.

This.

[mom2scouts]

5 hours ago, HeighHo said:

 

If your children are going to a school where they can be expelled, they are in private school.  My children attended public. Yes, there is a big difference between public and private...wealth buys a lot of grades when switching to underresourced public high school.

Hard to hide grades here......scholar-athlete is publicized, although NHS, honor roll, and class rank are not.

Why do you think public school students can't be expelled? I know of three kids who were expelled from our local public school. They end up doing online school, being homeschooled, or finding a private or charter school that will accept them. Also, not all public high schools are "undersourced". There's one near us that makes some of the private schools look poor.

[katilac]

1 hour ago, mom2scouts said:

Why do you think public school students can't be expelled?  

I'm not HH, but I can say that it's extremely difficult for public school students to get expelled in my area. It's actually extremely difficult for a student to get an out-of-school suspension; parents can request a formal hearing (and they frequently do). Hearings involve a hearing officer, the student, the principal and/or teacher concerned, and witnesses. It's a big, time-consuming deal. Parents must be notified of time/date/location and may attend, but don't have to attend.  They have nothing to lose and don't even need to inconvenience themselves, so yeah, a whole lot of parents request hearings, lol. 

Hearings are required for expulsion, they do not have to be requested. 

The end result is that schools with a lot of discipline problems avoid suspension and expulsion for as long as possible, because it's insanely time-consuming. It certainly is possible, though. It's  more likely to happen in schools with fewer discipline issues, because they can manage to make the time for hearings when it's just a few kids here and there. 

 

[SKL]

6 hours ago, katilac said:

...

Who threatened you with punishment? What kind of punishment? 

In your daughter's case, I really don't understand why she would be hurt or embarrassed - you said in the other thread that she maintains mostly B's. I guess everything's relative, because that doesn't even meet my definition of a struggling student. I know she works hard, I know homework takes a long time, I know she has some accommodations, but that's true for a lot of students who aren't getting anywhere near B grades. A 'B' is a good grade! A 'C' is an average grade. 

Do you think the same way about sports, that no one should talk about how anyone is doing well in sports? Or at work? Because I'm happy to hear that your son made the honor roll, or your daughter made All Stars, or you just got a big promotion.

My teachers threatened everyone, and they paddled in those days.

It was actually my higher achiever who was the target of the 14yo's comments.  And this has been an ongoing thing with him.  But she said he shut up when he realized that his other friend (sitting nearby) got disappointing grades.

As for sports, I do think people should be thoughtful about how they talk about that too.  It's fine to say your kid enjoys/participates in sports.  It's fine to mention that his team had a good season and is going to state or whatever.  That's good enough.  I don't see the point of stating how many points or hits he got compared to the rest of the team, unless someone is interested enough to ask for details.

[katilac]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

It was actually my higher achiever who was the target of the 14yo's comments.  And this has been an ongoing thing with him.  But she said he shut up when he realized that his other friend (sitting nearby) got disappointing grades.

This really sounds less like a matter of it being a problem to share grades, and more like this kid in particular just has poor manners and likes to stir the pot. She'll get better at dealing with this kind of person with more experience and maturity, it's just hard when you're that young.