Virginia Beach - Parents of Virginia Beach City Public School students have mixed reactions after hearing that there may be changes to the way their students are graded next year.
On Wednesday, the school system held a round table discussion for parents. The goal was to address three recommendations made by the Fair and Equitable Grading Practices Committee. The group, made up of teachers, administrators, parents and students are responsible for the proposed recommendations.
Recommendation One, is to give students two different grades, one for their behavior and one for their comprehension of material. Recommendation Two is for there to be a change in the grading scale and Recommendation Three is to have the committee continue to monitor the grading practices and make recommendations as need. Click here for more information about the recommendations.
Most parents had no problems with Recommendation One and Three, but parents did have some concerns with Recommendation Two. Superintendent Dr. Aaron Spence says it is necessary to change the grading scale for students to learn.
"Our grading scale in its current form if you think about it goes from 0 to 100 and the first 60 points is failing, so a lot of the talk has been how to mitigate the impact of zeros and encourage students to keep learning," said Dr. Aaron Spence.
An exact grading scale has not yet been proposed, which has some parents concerned.
"I don't think there is anything wrong with the way they are grading now and I don't see a point to changing it," said Cindy Becker, a parent of two Virginia Beach City Public School students.
There will be another round table discussion held next week at First Colonial High School. It will begin at 6:30 p.m. Administrators say all feedback from these discussions will go back to the committee. The committee says they will take the input into consideration before presenting their changes to School Board this spring. The changes will be implemented the following school year.
