Students discuss speculation over a potential grading policy change

The new grading policy is one of the biggest changes this year, and has received the most negative feedback. The 80/20 policy set in place has been negatively affecting students’ grades all over the school, putting more emphasis on tests and quizzes and less emphasis on overall performance in class.

Administration recently sent out a survey for students and parents to fill out and express their feelings about the new policy.

This is a very respectable move by the administration. They are seeming to realize their mistake in making students their “guinea pigs” for this 80/20 policy to see if it works, and taking responsibility for it.

“How can we improve communications on the new grading practices?” the survey said. It then asked students and parents to fill out boxes of policies they had a positive experience with from this year, as well as policies they had a negative experience with.

It is clear amongst students and staff: the grading policy is disliked. It is also clear that everyone is pretty happy to be able to express their opinions about the policies put in place so that they can potentially make a change to them.

“I think it’s a good thing they sent out a survey. It’s nice to see they care about students’ feedback and they are trying to come up with the best policies to help students succeed,” English teacher Angel Ruiz said.

The administration knows how negatively the grading policy is affecting grades, and they may want to fix it.

“I don’t think the administration thought the policy through enough because it’s possible to get a 90% in the class without doing any homework,” junior Owen Osterman said.

The policy focuses way too much on tests while not caring very much about homework. It is making it much harder for students to succeed in the class this way.

“How am I supposed to do well on the tests if I don’t get any homework?”  junior Donyanna Pannell said.

At least the administration is starting to realize this after months of student complaints.

“I’m glad the administration put out the survey so they can at least get our opinions on the policies,” Pannell said.

It is clear that the students need a change in policy. Whether this change should be department-based or a completely new overall policy still needs to be figured out.

“I think the policy should go back to how it was last year,” sophomore Nathan Walsh said.

Last year’s policies were mostly point-based, so teachers could decide on how heavily to weigh the grades. The other option would be a 60/40 method instead of the 80/20 rule that we have right now. This would allow for a better overall outlook on grades, but keep it so that tests were still more important.

However, everything comes down to the administration. Their ultimate decision is going to need to be how much they want to take students and teachers’ feelings into consideration, and if they do, what the new policy will be.

Only time will tell, but the NC community should certainly be ready for a change in policy after students return from winter break in January.