Contract grading part 3: communication with parents and advisors

In my 9th grade AP Physics 1 class, everyone gets an A-minus on each term report.  The first post in this series describes *why* I chose this model, the second discusses in detail how the school administration and I worked together to develop this outlier of a grading system.

Teachers must work alongside four different constituencies, each with their own quirks: students, parents, colleagues, and administrators.  Once I developed the general idea of contract grading for AP physics and hammered out details with administrators, the next step was to communicate this approach effectively to my students' parents and faculty advisors. 

Now, I expect that the circumstances surrounding my AP Physics 1 course are nearly unique among this blog's readership: I'm teaching a 9th-grade-only section, for which the students have been pre-selected, over the summer, by a faculty committee based on admissions files.  My sense is that if our parents were straight-up given the option of general or AP physics, very few would choose AP.  This is contrary to my experience with older students, contrary to what I hear from physics teachers at other schools.   

(Because of the unusual nature of my course, I almost didn't write this post!  While I think the everyone-gets-an-A-minus approach can in fact work in many schools, my particular communication strategy is optimized for my particular 9th grade boarding school situation.  I'm not at all recommending that others do exactly as I do!  I'm sharing what I've done so that readers can adapt, or not, to their own needs.)

No, parents are not part of the decision making process.  Students don't know they've been placed into the AP course until they show up on the first day of class!  This is quite deliberate.  We don't need to add any anxieties to what is already an angst-ridden orientation period, when 14 year olds are living away from their parents - and vice-versa - for the first time.  

As soon as the first day's class is over, I send the letter below to the parents, copied to faculty advisors.  I'm trying to get word out to parents before they have that first phone call or text conversation from their kid.  My hope is the conversation goes something like:

     9th grader: I was chosen for the AP Physics class.

     Mom and Dad: I saw!  That's wonderful!  How do you feel about that?

     9th grader: We had fun doing a lab today.  I did okay, I guess.  It's cool that they chose me!

The good news is, colleagues and parents have been quite supportive so far.  The contract assuages their worries, the same way it soothes my students' grade anxieties.  

Throughout the letter, I'm trying to hit two separate emotional beats for the far-away parents: (1) Your son is special, and has been specially chosen; (2) Don't worry, we know what we're doing, we're not using your kid in some whackadoodle untested experiment.  

And those are generally the two things that our parents need and want to hear if they're going to accept that their 14 year old is taking a college-equivalent class.  

(Note that I teach at a boys school, so the gendered language below is deliberate.)

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Nti,

This is Greg Jacobs, science department chair and physics instructor.  I wanted to let you know a bit about our plans for your son this year in physics.

A committee of faculty and administrators selected a set of 9th graders to attempt the College Board’s AP Physics 1 course this year.  Woodberry has had tremendous success over the years on the AP Physics exams – in fact, my classroom is decorated with posters naming the numerous students who have earned college credit via the AP program.  The vast majority of students who take this course pass the AP exam.  Our committee carefully considered the level of challenge that each boy is likely to be able to handle, and recommended that your son attempt AP Physics 1 this year.

Below is the syllabus that your son received on the first day of class, including the course contract on the final page.  I want to assure you that I will be looking out for him!  If it turns out that the challenge of AP is too much for him, or if he’s not meeting the requirements of the course contract, I’ll counsel him into our top-rate conceptual physics course, where he will get the grounding that allows students to do extremely well in AP Physics as an upperclassman, or in the equivalent course at college.  My goal for this course is to develop a team of students who are excited about learning physics for its own sake, at a very high level.  We think your son could be an important member of that team.

If you’d like to know more about the AP Physics 1 program, please google “AP Central Physics 1”.  There you’ll see the official course overview.  

Thanks.  I’m excited to work with your son this year!

Greg

In the next post, I'll explain how I communicate with students, both on this first day and throughout the year.  Just know that these students are at first generally surprised and pleased that they have been specially chosen for this challenging course, with only minor trepidation.  And then collectively work more diligently than any of my previous first-year classes.