GILROY
– The academically charged parents group that led the
high-profile fight to reinstate honors courses at Gilroy High
School last year is claiming that a special GHS committee’s recent
6-4 vote against grade weighting may have violated its own
bylaws.
GILROY – The academically charged parents group that led the high-profile fight to reinstate honors courses at Gilroy High School last year is claiming that a special GHS committee’s recent 6-4 vote against grade weighting may have violated its own bylaws.
And, the group says if it understands a 1991 school board policy correctly, the school’s change from a weighted to an un-weighted grading system circumvented district authority.
The Alliance for Academic Excellence geared up Monday night for Thursday’s school board session wehre they will present arguments for adding value to grades received by students in Advanced Placement courses (known as grade weighting). The Alliance says it will also push for an immediate recalculation of grade point averages and class ranks for this year’s seniors.
“We need grade weighting for this year even though some kids have already been accepted into colleges,” GHS parent Bob Heisey said. “(Weighting grades) affects GPA and class ranking, and it will follow kids the rest of their life. They don’t only need it to apply to college, they need it to compete for scholarships, too.”
Thursday’s school board session begins at 7:30 p.m. It will be held in the district office, 7810 Arroyo Circle.
Alliance members wanted their plea to be formally recommended by Gilroy High’s leadership team, but that group – made up of parents and staff – voted 6-4 against the grade weighting proposal last week. When the leadership team presents recommendations for grading policy changes Thursday, the policy will not include a provision for weighting AP grades.
The two parents on the GHS leadership team – Diane Baty and Susie Law – voted against grade weighting, infuriating some parents. At an open forum the day before, the dozen or so parents in attendance supported grade weighting, some adamantly.
“We’re concerned that the majority of parents’ opinions were not expressed by the (leadership team),” said Heisey, whose son is an AP student and a senior. “We need to have weighted (grade point averages) to encourage students to take AP courses.”
The Alliance may contest the validity of last week’s recommendation over concerns that the leadership team has not been following its own bylaws regarding membership and open meeting practices. A copy of the bylaws could not be obtained before deadline.
Beginning this year, GHS implemented a non-weighted grading system adopted without board approval by former principal Wendy Gudalewicz.
The policy change was felt by students in this year’s graduating class since their GPAs, and in some cases their class rank, changed to reflect an un-weighted grading system. Parents and students are concerned that their lower GPAs and class ranks will forever haunt students as they further their education and try to land scholarships and employment.
The Alliance says that Gudalewicz’s decision may be invalid, too. They point to a 1991 school board policy that implemented the then brand new AP program at GHS. That policy, according to the Alliance, included a provision that AP grades be weighted.
“We need the district to have a clear understanding of the grade weighting policy approved in the ’90s,” Heisey said. “It seems to us that a decision to not weight grades had to go to the board.”
Under a weighted grading policy, students are given an extra grade point when they complete an AP course. For instance, a student who receives an A in regular biology is given 4.0 grade points, but a student who receives an A in AP biology gets 5.0 grade points. The GPA padding is done to encourage students to take what are considered to be the most rigorous of high school courses.
Opponents of weighted grades claim that under the grade weighting policy students were avoiding elective courses such as band, choir or yearbook which do not give extra grade points. Other students, they claim, asked for their elective courses not to be figured into their GPA, in order to optimize the value of the extra grade points received by taking AP courses.
Grade weighting opponents also claim that a high school’s calculation of GPA and class rank does not affect a student’s chances to being admitted into college, since universities recalculate GPA and class rank anyway. That claim was corroborated by Pamela Burnett, the director of undergraduate admissions at UC Berkeley in a recent interview with a Dispatch reporter.
“We don’t pay any attention to the GPA and the class rank as gauged by the high school,” Burnett said. “It won’t affect their chances of being admitted here.”
However, Burnett said high schools should use weighted grades to encourage students to enroll in AP courses.
“It’s important for students to take college prep courses and take courses with as much rigor as possible. In AP courses, they are expected to study with a level of rigor expected here,” Burnett said. “If weighted grades encourage a student to take an AP course, it would be a good thing.”
