End of A-to-F school grades urged

School board members seek relief from state for students this year

Central Florida school board members urged the state Tuesday to scrap A-to-F school grades this year and to hold students “harmless” when they take state exams this spring.

Joined by board members and school advocates from across the state, they used an online press conference to encourage the Legislature to pass bills that would do away with issuing school grades and using test scores to decide if third graders are promoted and high school seniors earn diplomas.

The 2020-21 school year has been upended by the coronavirus pandemic, they said, and it would be neither fair nor useful to grade schools and hold students to the same standards used in years past. The message is one some educators, including Seminole County’s superintendent, have been pushing since fall.

If school grades were issued in 2021, a quarter of Orange County Public School campus could get Fs and half would likely see their grades drop, said Angie Gallo, a member of the Orange County School Board.

“This past year has been a year of many challenges,” Gallo said. “Now is a time to focus on students.”

School leaders said they support giving Florida’s standardized tests this spring to students who are on campus but not using the results “punitively.” They want the proposed bills — one of which got a first favorable committee vote last week — approved or they want Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to use an executive order to do away with the high-stakes consequences typically tied to state tests.

The state canceled testing and school grades in 2020, after schools shuttered in April and finished out the school year online.

Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran has insisted state testing is needed this

year, so both the state and its public schools can see what students have learned and what academic gaps have been created by the pandemic. But the state has extended the testing season, which begins in April, hoping to make in-person exams safer and more palatable to parents.

Because of the virus, about 35% of the state’s students are studying online rather than on campus.

Corcoran also noted that many students back on campus for in-person lessons also have had their education disrupted by the virus because they’ve had to quarantine because of possible exposure to COVID-19, forcing them to go to virtual classes temporarily.

“We need to test. We need to have that diagnostic,” he said Monday, speaking in an online forum with Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens.

Once the test scores are in, the department will figure out the next steps, Corcoran said.

“We’ll get that data. It will speak for itself, it really will,” he said. “Then we’ll engage in a very compassionate and graceful way. We’ll make decisions based on that, that are absolutely fair and just.”

Jennifer Martinez, president of the Florida PTA, said the parent group supports testing this spring because it will provide data to “understand the impact of COVID 19 on students’ education. “We can use these assessment to help.”

But issuing school grades would hurt public schools, she and others said, and schools in low-income communities — places hardest hit by the pandemic and its economic fallout — also would suffer the most.

Their students typically post lower scores on the state exams, leading to lower school grades.

Board members noted that students have been struggling this year, both academically and emotionally, and the so-called COVID slide has led to many more Fs this year. Teachers have struggled, too, as many have juggled teaching both online and in-person students.

“We must make sure that we help our students and our teachers with their anxiety and their stress,” said Abby Sanchez, a Seminole County School Board member, and not force them to focus on testing.

Rep. Robin Bartleman, D-Weston, one of the sponsors of legislation (HB 359) to do away with testing consequences in 2021, also spoke at the press event.

“There was nothing typical about this school year,” she said. “Now is not the time to use the state accountability system punitively.”

Her bill has not been heard yet, she said, but its Senate companion (SB 886) by another Broward County Democrat got a favorable, bipartisan vote last week, though it also prompted lots of questions from lawmakers. Federal law requires state testing and school accountability systems, such as Florida’s A-to-F grades, but President Joe Biden’s administration announced last month that states could seek waivers from those rules this year.