Grading policies vary amid remote instruction

Much has changed for students over the past couple of months as schools have switched from in-person instruction to remote learning in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.

For many students, the grades they earn during the final part of the academic year will also be different.

Schools across the state have altered their grading guidelines to give students some leeway as they adjust to the new reality caused by the pandemic, while still holding them accountable for the work they are assigned.

“Every district is deciding how can we support our kids, how can we continue their education during these unprecedented times, and then how can we measure their progress so that the kids and the families have an understanding and an idea as to where they are in their academic progress,” said Joe Guarino, superintendent of New Brighton Area School District in Beaver County.

While the state Department of Education has given some guidance to schools on how to approach grading during remote instruction, it is up to local education agencies to decide the specifics. The policies that schools choose affect all students, but they have serious implications for high school students whose transcripts could be affected, impacting their post-secondary pathways, availability of scholarships and opportunities for athletics.

Various methods are being used around southwestern Pennsylvania. There are districts that have stuck to traditional letter grades and others that have switched to pass/fail. Many are using a hybrid of the two systems.

The guidelines created by the Pittsburgh Public Schools would not allow any student to fail, but the district still expects all students to engage in remote learning, either online or using work packets. Students in grades six to 12 will receive a minimum grade of 70% in all courses for the fourth quarter and second semester as a whole. Students in kindergarten to fifth grade will receive a “P” for pass and be promoted to the next grade.

“The grading guidelines are designed to hold students harmless,” David May-Stein, the district’s chief of school performance, said Thursday in a video conference.

The city school board was going to vote last week on grading guidelines but realized late that policy dictated it was the superintendent’s responsibility to create the plan. The board accepted Superintendent Anthony Hamlet’s guidelines even though some members said they would have made changes if they had the power.

Board members Cynthia Falls and Terry Kennedy said they liked the plan devised by Seattle Public Schools, in which students would either receive a grade of A or incomplete.

Ms. Falls this week said she had faith in the district administration to come up with effective guidelines. But she said she thought state Education Secretary Pedro Rivera should have provided more guidance on grading guidelines so there would be more consistency across Pennsylvania, at least for high school seniors.

“The Department of Education is going to say, ‘We left it up to the individual districts,’ ” Ms. Falls said in a phone interview this week. “But you also left them hanging.”

The Department of Education declined to comment on Ms. Falls’ criticism. But Mr. Rivera said last week that grading policies are a discussion between school administrators and board members and are not something that his department oversees.

“The actual grading policies are something that are adopted at the local level, and we’re already starting to see myriad examples,” Mr. Rivera said. “Districts are moving to pass/fail, districts are scaffolding, piggybacking off of what the last grade is, some districts are looking at what the mission [is for] the students.”

Sticking with tradition

New Brighton Area School District will continue with traditional grading through the school shutdown because students and parents are familiar with it and have a better understanding of the system already in place, Mr. Guarino said. But those were not the only factors that went into the decision.

Mr. Guarino said the district’s conversations with colleges and scholarship committees revealed that those entities would remain flexible with what they expected from students over the next few years. The district also wanted to follow the Department of Education’s mandate to do no harm to students in this abnormal environment.

“Our teachers are being extremely flexible and working with kids,” he said. “It’s about their growth. It’s more important that they get feedback, albeit remote, and are working through things to understand in this remote situation than it is about that straight number.”

Mt. Lebanon School District implemented a pass/ fail system that exempts the assessment from a student’s quality point average. The district said the system was a “long-standing practice” for students under extenuating circumstances.

The decision drew the ire of some Mt. Lebanon parents because they worry that exempting second semester grades from the QPA could have an adverse impact on a student’s transcript.

A petition created by parent Steven Guenther to change the grading to ensure it would not harm students received nearly 250 signatures and dozens of comments.

“The current crisis is stressful enough,” the petition said. “Our high school students should not be subjected to additional anxiety about getting into college, winning merit scholarships or earning academic honors. Unfortunately, the Mt. Lebanon approach to pass/fail gives them reasons to worry.”

A district spokeswoman did not comment on the petition but provided a letter from Ronald Davis, the assistant superintendent for secondary education, that said “equity with respect to all students’ ability to access the instruction, and providing protection to all students, especially those who were unable to access their education, were substantial considerations.”

Talking to the colleges

School districts and the state Department of Education have had discussions with colleges about the adjustments made amid the pandemic shutdown, and admissions offices are aware of the issues, school administrators said.

The University of Pittsburgh, for example, said it would not allow schools’ grading changes to negatively impact applicants.

“Admission to the University of Pittsburgh for first-year (freshman) or transfer applicants will not be adversely affected by any change(s) high schools or colleges make to their grading systems during any COVID-19 impacted semester(s),” Kellie Kane, Pitt executive director of admissions, said in a statement. “All applicants to the University of Pittsburgh already receive a comprehensive, individual review. As such, Pitt will take into account any challenges students may have faced during the pandemic in the admissions decision.”

Still, the Mt. Lebanon petition asked the district to change its grading policy to more closely align with peer schools, such as North Allegheny and Upper St. Clair.

North Allegheny and Upper St. Clair are using hybrid grading methods that, while not assigning letter grades, will help formulate a grade-point average.

North Allegheny middle and high school students will be graded on a system that counts any grade 61% or higher as a pass and 60% or below as a fail for the fourth quarter. At the end of the semester, though, no matter what percentage a student has, any passing student will earn 100% of total points available for the quarter, and any failing student will receive 60% of the available points. Weighted courses, such as honors or AP classes, will be calculated into the GPA as usual.

“We know that students are stressed out to begin with about maintaining grades and preparing for post-secondary or whatever else it may be,” said Melissa Friez, North Allegheny’s assistant superintendent of secondary education. “Perhaps your family member lost their job or has been diagnosed with COVID. There’s a thousand different things that it’s really hard to control for.

“We wanted to make sure that we could more or less level the playing field so kids didn’t feel like that this was going to be the end of the world for them,” she said.

The Upper St. Clair district has devised a threelevel grading system in which students can receive an assessment of exceeds expectations, meets expectations or below expectations. Each descriptor has a GPA, and there are weights for honors, Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses.

Tim Wagner, Upper St. Clair High School principal, said the district wanted to create a plan that “errs on the side of benefiting students while also recognizing that the teachers also are working in an unfamiliar environment.”

“We know that our students had already worked for nine weeks face to face during this semester, so we didn’t want this to be a lost semester for them,” Mr. Wagner said. “Instead, we wanted to make sure that while our descriptors reflect the fact that we’re in the midst of a pandemic, that our students’ effort is still accounted for.”