Tacoma adopts A-through-C grading scale for middle, high school students for rest of year
The Tacoma School Board voted 5-0 Thursday to adopt a new grading policy giving middle and high school students A, B, or C letter grades through the end of the school year as districts adjust to remote learning.
No D or F letter grades will be handed out.
Elementary students will continue to be graded numerically with 2 (approaching end of year standard), 3 (meeting end of year standard) or 4 (exceeding end of year standard). Elementary students cannot receive a 1 (performing significantly below end of year standard).
Student grades can not be lowered from March 13, when schools were directed to close.
The policy change comes after guidance from state Superintendent Chris Reykdal earlier this week prohibited districts from handing out failing or pass/fail grades, but otherwise gave districts the ability to decide their grading scale.
Tacoma’s decision came on the heels of Seattle Public School’s board decision to give out only A or “incomplete” grades. Tacoma’s policy does not include “incomplete” grades.
As Tacoma students and teachers finish up a sixth week of remote learning, Superintendent Carla Santorno said at the board meeting Thursday that the district needed to provide direction for grading through the rest of the school year.
Tacoma Public Schools staff initially proposed an A-through-D letter grading schedule, but the school board voted to amend the proposal after a lengthy discussion and conflicted feelings.
“I just don’t feel comfortable that a D minimum threshold goes far enough to adjust for all the disruptions that we’ve had in the system,” board director Andrea Cobb said at the meeting. “Educators are getting used to the same format. Students are trying to get up to speed on how to engage and what they should be doing.”
“I think I worry about the kids that have disengaged — whether they’ve just disengaged because they don’t think it matters, or because they have family circumstances or access issues (or) learning issues. I just worry about the implications in the equity,” added board director Lisa Keating.
“I don’t think it’s fair for us to make that judgment on these kids that will not be able to bring a D to A, C, or further. So, I’m troubled by that,” board director Enrique Leon said. “... I’m worried that we’re potentially harming a lot of kids in that way.”
Toward the end of the three-hour meeting, Santorno said she didn’t have difficulty with the change from A-through-D to an A-through-C scale.
“I don’t want kids to get the idea that we don’t believe that they can make the progress because I think they can, they will, and I’m sensitive to that,” Santorno said. “But I want to give our teachers and our staff the ability to get started on this work, and our students.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2020 at 10:59 AM.
