“I had a steady 80 for the whole marking period. Then all of a sudden the last week of [the marking period] hit and my grade went up by 10 percent,” Prisha Mathur (‘25) told Eastside. She noted that her teachers often wait to update their students’ grades until the final week of the marking period.

This is inconvenient for students and can create a false sense of security for those whose gradebooks do not accurately represent what is to be on their report card. If a student has an 85 or 90 percent in a certain class on Genesis – the mobile grading site used by the high school – they may not make any effort to rectify their grade. 

And then all of a sudden, teachers deadlines to input grades approach. And just a week before the interim or marking period’s closure, the unsuspecting student is suddenly stuck with dozens of new grades all inputted at once. This leaves the student little time to make efforts to fix their grades if necessary, and is a horrible annoyance to both the student and their parents.

Jeffrey Killion, a math teacher at East, always makes an effort to ensure his students receive their grades in a timely manner. By putting test and homework grades into Genesis the night his students turn in their assignments, this eliminates stress and uncertainty on both his and the student’s part. 

“I think it’s always best if students know where they stand as quickly as possible,” says Killion. “It’s always best if they have the most time possible to do something about [their grades].

However, Killion also notes that some teachers are unable to input grades due to their lives at home. Some teachers have children, spouses, or other family members or situations that may require their full attention whenever they exit their workplace.

And yet, students are still expected to meet deadlines. And no one asks about their home lives. Many students live with less than ideal situations, whether it be family issues, personal health issues or another type of major stressor.

Still, students are assigned entire projects due in a day, tests announced the night before, and entire novels for English class expected to be completed in an unreasonably short amount of time. The vast majority of East students are still able to complete these unreasonable yet pressing demands, regardless of their home lives.

Now, these students that worked hard to cram their studying into a small time frame have to wait days or sometimes weeks for a teacher to grade it. They are stuck with the same false grade in Genesis, knowing that it will not be the same by the end of the marking period because their teachers still have grades to submit. 

After all, if teachers refuse to input grades at a reasonable time, what is the point of a student even accessing their grades? What is the point of assignment deadlines for students, if teachers can wait weeks to complete their duties?