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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday January 23, 2008 - 3 Policy in line with Ministry of Education expectations Continued from page 1 society. An education system should teach teenagers how to live in the real world. Instead of being aware, students in the Halton District School Board are living in a bubble and are becoming unaccountable to the subjects and their teachers. "Who is responsible for creating the unaccountable child? Whether it is teachers, parents or society, it will be everybody's problem once these students graduate," added Shaheen. Casey Kalvaitis, president of the Halton chapter of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, said he recently received a copy of a memorandum from the Ontario Ministry of Education, under the title Growing Success, which directly addresses the issue of marking late and missed assignments. "Teachers must use assessment and evaluation strategies that are fair to all students," states part of the ministry document. It later lists nine methods for dealing with late and missed assignments. The last entry, related to reducing marks, says it is to be "used as a last resort". Kalvaitis said it's ironic that the ministry is addressing the late assignment issue directly because his understanding, as a veteran educator, has been that penalties from teachers for handing in late assignments were applied to very few students in the past. Since the ministry has addressed the issue it needs to be discussed and implemented fairly, he said, noting boards are now expected to put together an assessment and evaluation committee to discuss such practices. "It won't work unless there is a lot of support from each school." An education ministry spokesperson said in an interview there are two tracks for student assessment -- curriculum expectations and learning skills, and that the latter is to be used to address issues like homework completion. Teachers can consider mark deductions in their student evaluations but mitigating factors -- like students with "special challenges or needs, learning problems or problems at home -- should be considered first, said Patricia MacNeil. Halton Superintendent Jeff Blackwell said it is board policy, based on ministry direction, to give students a chance to explain why their work is late and extra time to get it done so the work can be evaluated and critical feedback provided. "We don't just automatically deduct (marks) or give a child a zero if they're a day (late) after an assignment or miss a test," said Blackwell, who also said the deduction of marks is not to be given for assignments that are even several weeks overdue. A student receiving zero for a project, test or assignment is a possibility though, he conceded. "Yes, at some point, as a piece (of learning) we have to put a zero in because it's time to write our (report cards). So the core point here is we put pressure on the student to show us their learning and to perform rather than just saying, `Okay, here we hit you with a zero, we'll all just forget about it.'" Jacqueline Newton, the principal of Oakville's Iroquois Ridge High School, supported the Ministry of Education's policy concerning late or missing assignments and noted that designing such policies is not something that happens lightly. "Parent groups, teacher groups and student groups have been dialoguing about assessment and evaluation for years and have always done that. The focus has always been on how to improve student learning," said Newton. "The Ministry's policy firmly believes that marks off for lateness marks punctuality and does nothing to improve student learning." Newton also noted that examining why a student is handing in their schoolwork late makes more sense than just taking off percentage points. When push comes to shove, Newton said teachers throughout the Halton District School Board do have other means at their disposal for getting students to hand in their assignments. "We all offer opportunities for kids to be able to do the work. So instead of a situation where kids get a zero we say, `Not so fast, at lunchtime you need to come in and work on this.' So we're not letting them avoid the work," she said. "On a professional learning day when teachers are here for learning we have also said to students, `That's not a holiday for you. If you have work that's late or outstanding you have to get in here and get it done.'" On one such professional day Newton said parents drove 63 students to the school so the students could catch up on their work. -- With files from David Leas Need Help Creating Something Unique? See our design team! Looking for something different? You'll find it here. 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