A student falls behind on their homework and they say, “I’ll do it later.” Then they start to say that on every assignment or they tell their parents that they finished it. When the parent checks in on their grades, the student gets in trouble for not doing their work, making them want to do it less, adding extra stress onto the students life, causing them to fall behind on work more.

Parents have access to students’ grades via Schoology, and some even get daily emails. When a student falls one grade letter down or has one missing assignment. A parent can see it right away and tell the student about every missing assignment and about every grade drop asking them why and telling them everyday about every missing assignment they have causing most students extra unnecessary stress on top of the students already stressful school life.

“My mom has the parents’ Schoology,” junior Paulina Borowski says. “She can go into your studio and avidly check my grades.”

Students may feel that extra stress, but the parents have a reason why they check the grades of their students so often.

“I do like having access to my child’s grades,” say parent Erin Szczepanik, “just to make sure they are staying on track. With the daily grade update email from Schoology, I also get to see any missing assignments and it provides a talking point between parent and student to question why an assignment was missing and whether or not it will be turned in.”

Teachers also have their opinion on whether the grade matters or how much it matters in the grand scheme of things.

English teacher Belinda Flynn thinks that the grades do matter but not for the reason many students may think. “It’s a partnership between kids and parents and teachers to kind of help keep everybody accountable and know what’s going on in school,” she states.

Though this communication has its upsides, when parents get daily Schoology emails, it can cause stress in school to then follow the student home.

“[My mom] talks to me after school,” sophomore Althea Polo says, “And she just says like, why did you get this grade on your test or this grade on your quiz? And, why aren’t you studying?”

Although it adds the extra stress, some students also see how this is helping them and without it would get off track.

“It does keep me in check,” Borowski says, “because, sometimes, I won’t even see it from either my mom or my dad. They can catch something. Maybe I won’t. So they just really keep me in check. Like how well I’m doing or like if I’m missing something they can know and they can tell me.”

A student falls behind and their parents sit with them saying calm words trying to ensure that the student knows that they are just doing what is best for them. Their parent’s light words do contain gravity though, trying to ensure that they are doing what they need to to not only succeed in school, but past high school and further into life — even if it leads the student to have slight anger and stress over school and their assignment completion.