La Plata, MD – On Oct. 22, the Charles County Board of Education(CCBOE) sat down with their Secondary Grading Committee for a town hall meeting that would be addressing whether changing the grading scale for determining an failing grade is called for. With most schools currently allowing students to get anywhere from a 0-59 percent grade, some schools have moved towards guaranteeing students no less than a 50 percent grade. The major problem that is to be remedied upon selection of the scale is unifying all middle and high schools to the same standards. Currently, there are inconsistencies across high schools and middle schools as to which scale is used and the CCBOE would rightfully like to change that
“Equal is different than equity” Deputy Superintendent Amy Hollstein said in her opening remarks for justifying a change to the 50-59 percent grading scale. Hollstein made it clear that the change would be in place to give students a second chance in mathematically passing a class.
However, the community clearly had a different opinion. CCBOE had put out a survey earlier in the month of October to gauge how the community felt about the grading change before their town hall meeting. According to the responses from 1,890 community members, 70 percent agreed that the board should not change the grading scale to the 50-59 percent model. Additionally, 72 percent of parents and non-parents agreed that that the 0-59 percent model does the best job in motivating students.
Concluding their town hall and work session that immediately followed, the board voted to keep with the traditional 0-59 scale, but to begin implementation across all middle and high schools in Charles County by the start of the second semester of the 2018-19 school year.
At their Nov. 13 meeting, the CCBOE brought forth a rough draft for an official policy that specifically outlines how “no minimum grades will be assigned.”
Board Member Margaret Marshall brought up the important point in the draft that no definition was given to what constitutes an “incomplete” grade in the official policy. “What [Board Member Victoria] Kelly may consider to be an incomplete may not be what I consider to be an incomplete,” Marshall stated.
However, most other board members felt that this term should remain broad. Although this somewhat contradicts the unification of the grading policy, the board believed that superintendent’s rule should be the discretion of what determines an incomplete grade.
Concluding their discussion, the official grading policy which enforces a 0-59 percent as a failing grade was set to be officially voted on at their December meeting.
That meeting has been tentatively scheduled for Dec. 11.
