May 6, 2020 Spring Semester Grades & Assessments Dear St. John Bosco High School Parents & Students,
Despite these challenges, our students have remained dedicated to their studies during remote learning and we believe that they should still have the opportunity to earn letter grades. Allowing students the opportunity to earn letter grades places them in the best possible situation for college admissions, communicates their academic achievement, and validates the hard work that they have put in during these circumstances.
The best solution to grading in a remote learning environment is to adjust our evaluation criteria for grades to account for the changes in assignments and essential learning targets made during COVID-19. Remote learning has prompted teachers to redetermine the essential learning criteria students will need to learn to complete their courses; create signature assignments to allow students the opportunity to demonstrate their learning; and assign grades based on the demonstration of learning. These signature assignments must be completed to earn grades.
As a result, an adjusted grade scale and policy was developed for the spring semester of the 2019-2020 school year. Expanding the opportunity for an A, B, and C is included to account for the considerations and effects of the transition to remote learning. See below for the complete policy as well as an overview of final assessments. The decision to continue to assign grades with the option for Credit/No Credit is the least imperfect solution to the assignment of grades. We should not grade the extent that COVID-19 impacted students, nor their access to learning, we should grade their learning. Thank you for your continued support during this historic time. Sincerely Dr. De Larkin Signature Assignment & Final Assessments Overview
Learning Styles Not all students learn the same. In a physical classroom, teachers have the ability to differentiate their instruction to allow for students to learn in various ways. The restriction of all learning to an online medium for all coursework decreases the amount of differentiation allowed, thus creates a limited scope for success.
Many courses are best taught in person. For example, a course like Engineering or Chemistry lends itself to hands on laboratory style teaching and learning. You can't learn how to drive a car without getting behind the wheel. Imagine trying to teach driving through Schoology. Our school's program of studies promotes a wide range of teaching methodologies that are appropriate for each course's learning objectives, all of which have been taught in a classroom, lab, band room, art room, or weight room. Adapting these courses to an online format has forced us to significantly modify our learning expectations and standards.
Teachers are creating new ways to measure learning. New measurements will usually vary in their validity and reliability. How do we know we are actually measuring the actual learning we attempted to teach? How do we know the measurement is reliable for each student? Not only is it difficult to confirm the integrity of assessments, it is also impossible to assure the equity of learning environments and resources for our students. This is one of the pitfalls of moving to a remote learning environment with minimal training and preparation.
University admission offices across the nation announced that students' high school grades earned during COVID-19 will be factored differently in the upcoming years for college admissions. As a college preparatory high school, we have historically taken direction from the University of California for our academic program policies. Recently, the University of California announced the suspension of letter grade requirements for A-G courses completed in winter/spring/summer of 2020 for all students including seniors as well as the suspension of the standardized test requirement for students applying for the fall 2021 term.
These announcements have sparked a movement of districts and schools across the nation to adopt Credit/No Credit grading policies for the spring semester. Credit/No Credit grading policies do not yield grade points. The result of a semester of credit/no credit grades would neither increase, nor decrease high school GPAs. Several questions remain unanswered for university admissions programs. How will the UC system determine admission from a large pool of applicants without data such as grades and test scores that have been used historically to differentiate applicants from one another? Will the university accept letter grades from students if their schools continue to assign letter grades? If so, would a student who earned a 4.0 this semester be in a better position overall for admission than one who earned pass/fail or credit/no credit? The wording in the university admission offices' announcement across the nation is vague and causes uncertainty for high schools, parents, and students prompting districts and schools to keep letter grade requirements to help place their students in the best possible position for college admissions.
St. John Bosco High School 13640 Bellflower Blvd. • Bellflower, CA 90706 • (562) 920-1734 |