NC lawmakers may let high school seniors pick how to get graded in COVID-19 pandemic
Updated June 2
State lawmakers could change how North Carolina high school seniors get grades this semester during the coronavirus pandemic.
The State Board of Education is requiring high schools to give seniors either passing or withdrawal grades for the spring semester instead of traditional grades, due to how COVID-19 has closed schools since mid-March. But under legislation filed May 26, local school districts could let seniors instead request regular numeric grades for the semester.
A revised version of the bill backed by the House Education Committee on June 2 changes it from being a statewide bill to only cover Union County Public Schools.
“It’s an option so if a student wants to take a numeric grade instead of pass/fail and they believe it’s better for them, that’s fundamentally fine,” Rep. Dean Arp, a Union County Republican and a primary sponsor of the grading legislation, said in an interview. “That doesn’t hurt anybody else.
“It encourages them to do good work and recognizes the hard time that teachers, parents and students have gone through.”
But the legislation could cause headaches for schools, according to Patrick Miller, superintendent of Greene County Schools. He said it could alter grade-point-averages that cause the valedictorian and salutatorian to change after graduation has happened.
“The main issue right now is just the timing issue,” Miller, an adviser to the state board, said in an interview. “It’s too late in the game to be considering changes like this.”
State board says no traditional grades for seniors
On March 27, the state board voted to only give seniors a “PC19” or “WC19” grade for the spring semester that won’t be counted in their GPA. They’ll get a passing grade if they were passing as of March 13.
State education officials said the decision to not use regular grades was made to help ease the anxiety of seniors worried about graduating on time.
But the board decided April 23 to allow high school students in grades 9-11 to choose the PC19/WC19 grades or regular grades for individual spring semester classes. This caused families of seniors to lobby the state board to give them the same option.
On May 7, the state board voted 8-3 to stand by its previous grading decision on seniors. The majority said it was too late to reconsider.
Union County calls for grading change
But the Union County school board unanimously voted to challenge the state board’s decision and said it intended to give seniors the option of choosing numeric grades.
Melissa Merrell, chairwoman of the Union County school board, said seniors deserve the option to keep the grades they earned before schools were closed. She said not having numeric grades from this semester will impact class rank, scholarships and financial aid for some seniors.
“We believe our 3,300 seniors are worth fighting for, and they have lost enough through COVID-19,” Merrell said in an email. “They do not deserve to lose their choice with their Transcript/Permanent K-12 record when their peers/classmates in 9-11 get a choice.”
The primary sponsors of the statewide grading legislation, House Bill 1199 and Senate Bill 842, all represent Union County.
Arp, the lawmaker and a former Union County school board member, said the legislation will give local control to school districts on how to handle grading. The legislation includes $10,000 to fund the cost for including the numeric grades in the state’s PowerSchool computer system.
“I don’t understand why we go to the lowest denominator and don’t accommodate where we all can,” Arp said.
But Miller, the superintendent, said the legislation opens up an issue that schools thought had been resolved. He pointed to how the executive board of the N.C. School Superintendents’ Association voted 13-2 in support of not reconsidering the state’s grading decision.
Miller also said a change would hurt seniors who’ve already graduated, such as those who attended early college high schools or left to join the military. He said those schools have already calculated their final grades.
“A lot of students who would have perhaps worked to get a better grade didn’t get that opportunity because they operated under the assumption that what was passed March 27 was what we would stick with,” Miller said.
This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 3:47 PM.
