The purpose of this study was to examine the messages that mathematics teachers communicated to secondary aged students through the written comments they provided on students’ report cards. There exists a gap in studying the written feedback teachers provide to students, specifically within the mathematics discipline. Mathematics teachers’ written feedback is also worthy of increased attention given the limited number of United States secondary aged students meeting proficiency levels on measures of national mathematics assessments, while the United States workforce becomes increasingly reliant on STEM skills. In addition, students’ mathematics anxiety tends to peak in ninth and 10th grade, with the relationship between mathematics anxiety negatively impacting students’ mathematics achievement strongest at this time as well. Teachers’ written feedback has potential to reduce students’ mathematical anxiety and increase students’ mathematical achievement, yet there exists limited research examining the typical written feedback mathematics teachers provide. Studies that have examined written feedback tend to operate from a realist world view, assuming that feedback exists separately from the larger socio-political context it is placed in within the education system. This study aimed to locate students’ report cards within their wider context and acknowledge that language can reflect multiple meanings and is socially situated. Ninety-two written comments towards 38 students from 16 ninth and 10th grade teachers located in a Northeastern United States private school were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Data was viewed from a relativist ontological and constructionist epistemological position and Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six phase guidelines of conducting reflexive thematic analysis was followed. Three themes were generated: 1) Positioning students as their grade, 2) Positioning students as self-regulated learners, and 3) Positioning students as innately skilled. Findings highlight a disconnect between current teacher feedback models and actual teacher feedback practice. Future research may benefit from explicit recognition of feedback as a socially situated act that may be confined by the wider cultural climate of assessment, grades, and accountability, as well as taking into consideration the presence of teachers’ fixed mindsets to inform feedback interventions.