Delaware State News

DOVER — A new grading procedure implemented this school year in the Capital School District left parents fearing that their once-A students would be failing by the end of the year.

"Children are being affected by this dramatically," said Beth Berrie, mother of Dalton, a Dover High junior. "Approximately half of the students are faring worse under the new policy than under the old policy.

"As parents, we are not prepared to allow our children to become collateral damage in a pilot program."

Ms. Berrie and many of the others attending Wednesday’s meeting are parents of advanced-placement or honors students, and are seeing their children’s grades fall for the first time.

The main concern among all the parents present at the school board’s meeting was a larger emphasis put on "summative" work, or cumulative exams, papers or projects, for a student’s grade. Summative work counts towards 80 percent of the grade, while "formative" work, like homework, drafts and quizzes, count as the remaining 20 percent.

"When you first implement something, there is a period when it takes everyone some time to get used to that change," said district instruction supervisor Sandra Spangler. "You will see a dip in the beginning."

Some of the parents, like Fallisha Callwood, who has two children at Dover High, would like to see the new policy gone for good, but they are also willing to settle with a 70/30 percentage for the grades versus the 80/20 that’s in place.

Members of the grading policy committee compiled a chart showing the difference was negligible in average grades in some classes based on both grading ratios. Parents, however, felt that even a small change could mean the difference between an A or a B.

As part of the new policy, teachers must administer four summative exams in each marking period, Ms. Spangler said, but so far this year, some have only given one, which could be skewing the grade.

But parents weren’t convinced, saying that even the fractions of percentage points’ difference the 70/30 scale made would make the difference in the students’ overall grade-point average.

"When you add up the differentials, it could be a 10-point difference," said Connie Hayes, whose daughter is in the 11th grade. "That’s what colleges look at, overall GPA and class rank."

Board members agreed to let the scores come in for the marking period before revisiting the idea of changing the policy.

"You can’t go through and say this is going to work for everyone," Dalton said, pointing out that some parents said their children were not good test-takers. "Colleges will not know that the district changed the grading policy in the most important year when we’re trying to get scholarships."