Students may be relieved to hear that Daviess County Public Schools is adjusting grading guidelines to acknowledge potential hardships that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had on children and families.
Jana Beth Francis, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning for Daviess County Public Schools, reported during a regular board meeting Thursday that students will be graded with leniency and have opportunities to improve their grades.
Under the amended practice, grades for the first three quarters will be worth 29 percent each quarter, and the fourth quarter will be worth 13 percent for elementary and middle school students. Each of the four quarters of a school year was worth 25 percent originally.
“This allows us to acknowledge the work that students are doing but also to deal with the fact that with COVID-19, the work has been challenging for families, and we don’t want to cause too much harm to a student’s grades,” Francis said.
At the high school level, DCPS will adjust the grading scale for the last semester, expanding the range for students to receive a higher grade.
On the adjusted grading scale, 85 to 100 will be an A, 70 to 84 will be a B, and 49 or below will be an F.
“The biggest challenge that I think everyone is facing is how to balance everything going on with COVID-19,” Francis said, DCPS is executing Non-Traditional Instruction for the first time in history. “If we were just doing digital learning at home and there was no crisis outside of that it would be easier, but we do have to find that balance between families coping with working at home and students learning at home.”
DCPS will also provide students a second chance and “hardship waivers” to change their grades. Any student who went into the NTI period with a C or higher may apply for a 15-day grace period to turn in work during that time without penalty.
The hardship waivers apply to the fourth quarter only. At the high school level, if students have not been able to complete their work, Francis said, “we will remove it from their transcript.” Elementary and middle schools will have the option to mark incomplete for their students.
NTI courses began March 18 and are scheduled through May 1, which will total 28 days of non-traditional learning for DCPS. Potential additional NTI classes and the option for summer school is still up in the air.
“Daviess County went into the process of non-traditional instructions with the goal of a continuation of learning, and I’m happy to report that for the most part, we are seeing a continuation of learning,” she said.
Francis said NTI courses have been a learning experience for not only students but also teachers and staff.
“The phrase that has been reported to us most often over the last week has been everyone is finding their groove and by that we mean we had finally found some of the sweet spots for how to plan effectively and teach effectively so that students can learn effectively during this NTI time period,” Francis said.
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