The Real Issues

Here are the most important issues:

All of our children have been affected by this policy, and if they have not yet, they will be.   Our children's GPAs are being affected and they are not acquiring the academic skills needed to learn, to be successful, and to persevere. 

One of the issues with Policy IK is how balanced grading is calculated and the variability of the grading scale.  The process of determining a grade is not uniform throughout the district, including the use of grading scales by teachers.  This is causing confusion among teachers, students and parents.   Teachers are literally having to convert their grades to fit into the new grading system, which is causing calculation errors, and grades are being lost in translation.  The teachers were not provided training on balanced grading, and Hillsboro School District currently has no software to help support teachers in this type of grading.  Teachers are having to manually convert all of their assessments turned in by a student.  In other words, the reporting of our students grades are not accurate, valid and reliable.   If you read IK-AR, zeros were to be eliminated from being averaged into the final grade.  There is confusion throughout the district on the use of zeros and I's. In some cases, students are being given partial credit for work that was never turned in, completed, or that would have ordinarily received a failing grade, which also gives the parent and the student the belief that they have mastered a skill set when they have not. 

Policy IK has demotivated students to do their homework or "formative" assessments. Students do not see the value of doing their homework when it has so little value (10%) towards their final grade. Because of this, students are not doing their homework, and therefore not passing summative assessments, which ultimately means that students are not meeting the standards. Since formative assessments are not being completed, there is no feedback to help teachers assess where a student is at. Students are not provided an opportunity to be retaught the subject matter. Furthermore, students are not taking the opportunity to retake summative assessments, and are choosing to keep the failing grade. As the teachers and parents have stated, this policy has removed all "leverage." If this policy moves to 100% summative, this issue will only be exacerbated.  Please note that this policy does not require that teachers allow a student to retake any "formative" or "summative" assessment.

Students are losing "life skills" or "student skills" with this policy. They will not be prepared for post-secondary education or the workforce. There are professors of colleges and universities that will not accept a late assignment (assessment), may mark down late assignments (assessment), require participation as part of a grade, or simply provide tests focused primarily on the lecture given in class and not just what is provided in the text of a book. The students of this district will not be equipped to succeed at any post-secondary education or have the work ethic to succeed in the workforce. 

This policy has no criteria for measuring non-academic behaviors or for providing consequences to students for behaviors, such as turning in a formative or summative assessment late. There currently is no criteria for measuring or reporting a student's behavior throughout the district.   The district does not even have the software to report and assess non-academic behaviors. 

There are issues with the number and variety of summative assessments being provided to students, and what constitutes a summative assessment. There is not consistency among teachers, subjects and grade levels on the implementation of this policy.   

This district requires that all teachers use high quality research based curriculum, yet their research on this policy does not meet these standards.  They failed to train their teachers on this policy.  They have failed at informing parents.  They are failing every child in this district. 

This policy (and its AR) need to be repealed now; yesterday was too late.  When a ship is sinking, you pull it into harbor (repeal it) to fix it -- you don't keep plugging holes while our kids are on board.  Let's set sail on the one we know works.  Anything less than repeal will not be acceptable.  

Kesa Andrews