My daughter is in online school. It's a state public school, not a private school or homeschooling. She's in it due to being severely bullied. I have to stay home with her, but I don't actually teach her anything, I'm a designated 'learning coach.'
She has assignments based on the same shitty Pierson textbooks the regular school kids use and has online classes with accredited teachers. Those teachers are generally get paid better than other public school teachers since the whole thing is a deal with Pierson, so they're usually a better level of teacher, which is part of what pisses me off so much.
My daughter worked really hard on her science presentation, a slideshow she was assigned to do. The overall topic was humanity's impact on the environment and one of the options she could pick was disease. My daughter is a weird kid- in a good way- who is into history when it's weird too, so she picked the Black Death.
Like I said, she worked really hard. I was really proud of her too because it was the first time she worked on a project this big without asking for or needing any help from me. So, she saved the project as a PDF and submitted the assignment.
The next day (Thursday), she gets back a grade of a zero. This is the teacher's note:
I noticed that you submitted a placeholder for the portfolio assignment. Is this an error? The portfolio is worth a lot..so please contact me as soon as possible. Please note that intentional placeholders are subject to not being accepted. If I don’t hear back from you soon, I will assume that it is a placeholder. Please do not upload placeholders to move ahead in the class as this may result in failing grades, calls home and referral to administration.
My daughter isn't a cheater and, like I said, she worked really hard. This stressed her out a lot because one of the reasons we took her out of her middle school was that the teachers rarely had her back when it came to bullying and sometimes also treated her like shit. Because that's what school is like for neurodivergent kids, even in 2024.
So... were totally confused. On top of everything else, the PDF was right there to download when you review the teacher's message. I sent her an email asking her what the hell is going on and also have my daughter send her a Google Slides link instead just in case there is some corruption issue on her end or something even though I can download and view the PDF just fine.
We don't hear back all Thursday and nothing until mid-day Friday, when she sent us both what is clearly a form email, ignoring both of the messages we sent:
Hello Parents and Students!
I wanted to take a moment to let you know that your student received a 0 on their science portfolio, but the great news is that there's still a chance to improve that grade!
Please log into your student’s gradebook and click on the science portfolio grade to read the feedback provided. This feedback outlines how your student can correct any issues and resubmit the portfolio within the timeframe specified for a better grade.
Let’s work together to help your student succeed! Thank you!
She also responds to my daughter's google slides link and says it's a very interesting slideshow and asks where she got it from (you will see below why that is just a bullshit lie to get her to reveal that she cheated).
So I have my daughter also send her the PDF the "fill this out to help you with your research" document my daughter diligently filled out before doing her slideshow and I got mad and sent a message to her homeroom teacher, who you're supposed to go to for any major problems.
My daughter is now super stressed, and Friday is a pretty easy day for her, so I take her out to do things to give her a nice day- get her a smoothie, let her walk around Five Below, etc.
When we get back, maybe at 1 pm, I check my email. I get this from the teacher:
I have to apologize!! When I first saw her portfolio and saw all the old pictures and the Black Death title, I assumed ( I know, I shouldn’t have) it was a placeholder.
She left a similar voicemail to my wife and apparently one to my daughter, but I didn't read it. I just said thanks and told my daughter to say thanks as well.
But I'm just floored. She didn’t bother just reading the text. This is the slide right after the title slide. If she had taken a few seconds, she would have realized this is a middle schooler doing a science project:
(I'm not suggesting my kid is stupid, I'm saying that's pretty typical for her age.)
Be a little less lazy than your eighth graders, lady. And maybe don't automatically assume they're cheating.
At least she ended up giving my daughter 100%.
Had a somewhat similar experience back in my high-school days some 15 years ago.
I went to a specialized school for kids with learning disabilities (ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, visual and auditory processing disorders, etc). I was an exceptionally smart kid doing college level work across the board, but i never did homework. Why bother? I struggled with organization, but i took every test they put in front of me and blew it out of the water, so I clearly understood the material.
With this understood, I was still not allowed to walk graduation with my classmates due to a "failure" to turn in an English research paper that was mandatory for graduation. My family had come out to watch me graduate from hundreds of miles away. I was mortified, especially because I was DAMN sure I turned that paper in multiple times (you were required to show drafts, I had done a first draft, a revision, and a polish). SOMEHOW, those papers never made it to the English teacher according to the school. But don't worry! I could take a $3500 summer class to finish the credit and still get a GED!
Well my dad, who drove out to CA from Texas, could smell the fish once he saw the net. He knew i almost never turned in homework, but I'd never fully blown off an entire assignment before. So he arranged a visit to see the school before he agreed to the summer courses. While he was there (the first Monday after the graduation ceremony none of us got to attend) he physically broke into the English Teachers desk and went through the papers. Tiny school, so there were only 20 students in my graduating class. Not exactly a gigantic number of students to sift through.
Long story short, while the school was freaking out about the 6 foot 5 troll rummaging through school property, he managed to find my paper. All three drafts of my paper, in fact. Before the school could get around to figuring out they should call the cops, my dad took my paper to the Dean and the school director and asked extremely pointed questions about exactly why we were being recommended a summer course to finish up my credits.
We were treated to a plethora of excuses and apologies, from the English teacher misplacing them to how their first graduating class had been "so hectic" that I just fell through the cracks. Again, 20 students in that graduating class. Between grades 9-12 and staff the entire program was less than 100 people. Really, what's losing track of one person out of 100?
My dad graciously agreed not to hunt down and eat anyone from the school in exchange for a full diploma. We reported them to the state, but as a charter school, it was basically a "private" institution and they could do whatever they wanted as long as they met the accreditation requirements.
We ended up just spreading what happened through word of mouth in the parent network. The Dean quickly found new work at a different charter program and the administration board was voted/bought out by the parents of a girl in the grade behind mine. Heard some years later that her dad ran the entire charter into the ground in 3 or 4 years and the charter ended up closing down and reopening in a new city. Also found out our history professor ended up spending some 8 years in a Thai prison for the kinda shit that gets you on government watch lists even when you come back to the US. Bunch of us former students got some very curious calls about him from some very serious federal people about 10 years after graduating.
All in all, I'd still spit blood on most of the staff involved some 15 years later. That kinda hurt never really goes away as a kid. If I were you, I'd push the teacher for a hand written apology or a zoom call face to face thing. Accusing a kid of not doing something in a serious situation isn't a whoopsie that just gets shrugged off. That's shit they carry with them for a long, long time.
I (and my entire class for a semester) have a remarkably similar story for one of our classes under a particular teacher. Turns out, they couldn't be bothered to actually grade any of the papers, so they gave out zeros expecting kids to come in and correct them later. The worst part was that this was a teacher that many of us kids had liked and respected beforehand. We did all learn a very important lesson about CYA, trust but verify, and personal backups that year.