Wrong Grade 12 marks spark review
Students in ‘panic’ and fear losing university acceptance over ‘insanely low’ grades
The B.C. Ministry of Education is reviewing the grades for every Grade 12 provincial exam written by students in June, after serious errors appeared online.
Some students checking their grades on the ministry’s online transcript service on Monday experienced “a lot of fear and panic” at the “insanely low” marks, said Helena Murray-Hill, who recently graduated from Mount Douglas Secondary School.
Students are terrified of losing university acceptances, scholarships and placements on varsity sports teams because of the errors, she said.
“Pretty much everyone around me has a really screwed-up mark. Even if I did check my mark, I wouldn’t trust it. Even if I got 100 per cent, I would not trust it.”
She said “everybody’s been affected, if only because our trust in the system is gone.”
One friend told Murray-Hill that her mother yelled at her for getting a low grade. Murray-Hill said her English teacher sent an email to his students noting their final grades dropped an average of 35.5 percentage points after the provincial exam was included. The exam counts for 40 per cent of the final mark.
In previous years, the average difference between in-class and final marks was about two percentage points, wrote the teacher, adding he had never seen an average difference of more than five points.
Two students in his class who had grades of 94 per cent going into the provincial exam received 22 per cent on the test. One student with a class mark of 98 per cent received three per cent on the final exam. Murray-Hill said she hasn’t had a chance to check her final marks because the website kept being taken down.
A ministry spokesman wrote in an email Tuesday that a team of ministry staff is working to identify and resolve an “anomaly” in the tabulation of Grade 12 exam results. The ministry is reviewing each June 2019 exam result to ensure students’ grades are accurately reflected on their transcripts, the email said.
“We understand that this situation is stressful for students and families,” the ministry said, adding the scope of the problem is being determined and that it’s focusing on resolving the matter “as quickly as possible.”
The email said all B.C. secondary schools have been contacted about the problem. B.C. postsecondary institutions have been contacted by the ministry to ensure no student applications are affected. The ministry is also contacting Canadian postsecondary institutions and will work with out-of-country postsecondary institutions as needed.
Shelley Green, superintendent of the Greater Victoria school district, said she had just received an email about the review and had not yet had a chance to look into it. Sooke superintendent Scott Stinson said the district is reviewing the information.