FARMINGTON – Regional School Unit 9 school board directors approved alterations to the district’s grading policy and graduation requirements at Tuesday’s meeting, opting not to grade assignments after the implementation of remote learning on March 13.
Districts across the country have been grappling with how to measure student progress in new remote learning environments. In rural parts of the country, districts are further dealing with how to reach students who may not have reliable access to the internet. RSU 9 has configured laptops issued to students to access the internet in school parking lots; other entities, such as local libraries and the University of Maine at Farmington are providing similar opportunities for internet access. However, administrators noted Tuesday evening, in many cases the same students that don’t have access to home internet also don’t have access to a car. In other cases, students may not have a safe learning environment or may have additional at-home responsibilities, such as providing childcare for siblings.
The changes recommended by administrators and teachers that worked on the plan included tracking assignments issued after March 13 through PowerSchool but not grading them. For grades 6 through 12, students will be able to complete missing or failing work due prior to March 13 until May 1. Passing a class will consist of students earning a grade of 60 or higher; for Semester 2 courses, the grade will be a pass/fail based off Quarter 3 work. For year-long courses in which a student is failing in Semester 1, students will be invited to make a plan with their teachers to reach a passing grade.
For grades 6 through 12, report cards and transcripts will reflect the typical Semester 1 grade based off the average of Quarter 1 and 2. The Quarter 3 grade will be based off of student work up through March 13, plus any make up or revised work submitted prior to May 1. For Quarter 4 and Semester 2, transcripts will have no score but will include a note indicating that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no grades were recorded.
Eighty percent of the year-long score will be based off Semester 1, with the remaining 20 percent based off student work in the abbreviated Quarter 3. Honors and awards will be based of the Semester 1 score, including cumulative Grade Point Average and senior awards. The year-long score will be calculated, as indicated above, but will not be used as the basis for honors or awards.
Seniors will be provided with opportunities to pass and receive credit for their classes, administrators said. The changes approved Tuesday evening include reducing the district’s graduation requirements down to the state minimum: 4 years of English, 2 years of social studies, two years of mathematics, two years of science and one year of fine arts. That reduction – 1.5 years of social studies, half a year of health, a year of mathematics, a year of science and 1.5 years of physical education – would allow seniors to focus on their core subjects and graduate, administrators said. The change in graduation requirements also includes lowering the number of credits required from 24 down to 20.
For pre-K through grade 5, Quarter 3 progress reports will be based off student work through March 13. For pre-K through grade 3, progress reports will be emailed to parents, or mailed in some cases. For grades 4 and 5, progress reports will be distributed through PowerSchool. For Quarter 4, a personal note will be submitted instead of a report card.
Curriculum Director Laura Columbia outlined other options discussed by planners, including grading student work normally through the remote learning period, so-called “grading without penalty,” which refers to allowing students to improve their grades but not make them worse, or assigning pass/fail grades to remote learning work. All of those options ran into the same issue, Columbia said, in that some students did not have reliable internet, a safe learning environment or the same amount of free time as their peers.
Superintendent Tina Meserve noted that the changes were in line with the recommendations of the Maine Department of Education, particularly in that students should not be failing classes because of the coronavirus.
Directors were generally supportive of the plan. Director Kirk Doyle of Farmington and Director Betsey Hyde of Temple, while both saying they appreciated the work that had gone into the plan, raised concerns with the impact of no graded work on some students. Doyle suggested providing some means for students to positively impact their grades during the remote learning period, while Hyde worried about keeping highly motivated learners learning if there was no real incentive to do so.
Other directors pointed to the fairness issue raised by Columbia and other administrators, in that some students who wanted to positively impact their grades through the remote learning process simply wouldn’t be able to access the same resources.
The board briefly considered meeting on the issue Thursday, to provide more time to consider the proposal, but that motion was defeated after most directors voted in favor of making a decision Tuesday evening. The vote on accepting the modifications to the grading and graduation requirement policies was 14 to 2, with Doyle and Hyde opposed.
Columbia also said that staff were keeping track of students that had not been making regular connections with teachers, particularly ones that had not been keeping pace academically with their peers. The 2,400-student district was tracking roughly 50 to 75 elementary students and 100 high school students that were disconnected from their teachers as of a couple weeks ago, Columbia said, but noted that data would be updated as students contacted teachers over the past several days. Teams consisting of principals, teachers, social workers and counselors would review students considered in need or urgent intervention, with a priority on safety and well-being.
Thank you, Ben, for covering a complex subject well. Also, we owe a great deal of thanks to the teachers and administrators who are doing incredible work in an extremely difficult situation, and to students who are having to adapt on the fly as well.
So if I am understanding this correctly sad9 requires more then the state requires for graduation? I had found out my senior year that the high school I attended also had their own requirements. What gives these schools the right to not allow kids to graduate if they meet the state requirements but not the individual districts required classes? These are public schools funded with public funds not private schools.
To Curious:
Every school district (at least in Maine) sets their own graduation requirements. And virtually every one of them has requirements that are more stringent than that of the state. The law allows the local school boards to set those requirements to whatever they want, as long as they meet at least the state minimum.
So in answer to your specific question, it is the law in Maine that allows kids to not graduate if they meet the state requirements but not the individual district requirements. Graduation requirements are at the discretion of the local school boards.
The state sets the minimum requirement that students must meet to receive a diploma. The state gives each school board the power to set additional requirements that students must meet if students want to receive a diploma from that school. I don’t know of a single public school in the state that goes by the minimal requirements that are set by the state of Maine.
Curious I for one am glad we require kids to be above average, but if you look at the stats the district is below state averages on some things. The kids are still graduating so I wouldn’t complain. What you may be interested in knowing is that the budget looks like it will be increasing by $922k or so. It seems odd that in this day and age of corona and forced unemployment that we will be asked to cough up that kind of money in state and local taxes. Yes the money the state provides is still our money.
It is just a chapter in ‘The Dumbing Down of America” If we can educate good enough this way, think of the revolution in education. Think of the money to be saved for other things such as healthcare, infrastructure, caring for the needy etc. Momof2 , about a million a year increase in school budget for sometime now. Concerned citizens attempted for several years to make cuts and stop the habitual increase in the RSU9 budget. Some progress was made but not enough. Not enough voters seemed to care enough to get out and vote it down to acceptable numbers, for one reason or another.Maybe it is time for another try!?
Bob maybe enough people will say “No” this year especially with what is going on around us or maybe the zombie apocalypse will stick around a bit longer. I would hope and pray that this might wake some people up.
Momof2
All public employees have the idea that they are entitled to have raises and more benefits than anyone else whether its school, police, town or whatever. They use the excuse they are more educated, our job is more dangerous, and once we have a job you owe us that job until we decide to leave. You will find that no matter how many people have lost their jobs, the budget will always be business as usual in RSU 9 because we owe it to them through entitlement. Just my thoughts.
Wow. I know a lot of K-12 teachers. They are underpaid, both in comparison to other districts, and in comparison to others of similar education. They often have to dig to into their own small budgets to augment materials for their school children. They work in summer to perfect lessons plans. They give of themselves to help educate tomorrow’s citizens. In every other advanced industrialized country K-12 teachers are praised and honored as doing one of the most important jobs in society – helping assure the next generation can maintain democracy and a strong economy. Here they get ridiculed and people like Jordan slander them. It is sad.
As for the “state money being our money.” Well, school districts in rich southern Maine have no problem funding themselves because they have lots of money. Their kids get the best education possible. Without the state paying to help even things out, that would mean our students would be disadvantaged – the rich get richer, the poor won’t have as much opportunity. State funds are really rich southern Mainers helping rural Maine at least try to equal what they can provide. It’s more a transfer from wealthy Maine to poorer Maine.
Any effort to harm education is really an attack on getting our young people ready to compete in the world in a fair and effective way. Let’s not go that direction.
After all that has happened, (corona virus, mill explosion), I would think that budgets should decrease, not increase. Revenue sharing from the state will most likely go down considerably because of the increased cost of the corona virus and the county taxes will most likely increase due to the fact that the mill pays a fairly large portion of the county tax and they just had an explosion. With more people out of work, local property taxes will most likely see more people paying thier taxes later if they are able to pay at all. With less money coming into the towns, there will be more money borrowed by towns to operate on and potentially more liens having to be placed on homes and properties. Travis pond of the New Sharon selectboard sent an email to the RSU9 superintendent asking about savings at school level this year and was wondering if there would be a savings due to less employment, electricity use, fuel use, etc. The answer was basically no. She stated that payroll accounted for 80 to 85 percent of the school budget so there wouldn’t be any significant savings(doesn’t make sense to me). She has also said at a school board meeting that the state will most likely not have as much money for education making the local share higher.These are tough times for all of us in one way or another. Lower budgets is really a no brainer.
Lewiston/Auburn area is REDUCING their budget by $1.4 million this year. Hmmm they must not care about the kids education. Scott you work for an “educational” entity we wouldn’t expect you to understand. I wonder how many people will realize they can homeschool after this is over ? I know my kids like the idea.
@Scott Erb
Well said from an entitled public employee. You just proved my point!
Places reducing budgets are seeing a drop in students. That has not happened here. Momof2, your arrogance is misplaced – argumentum ad hominem, arguing against the person, is a logical fallacy. I could just as easily say since you don’t work in education, you don’t understand it. Such dishonest styles of argumentation should be rejected from either side. But hey, homeschool if you want! I know I couldn’t give my kids the benefits of votech classes and early college if I tried that, but if it works for you, go for it! As for the budgets – let’s see what kind of state and federal aid come for education. I have a feeling that a lot of money will be flowing to make sure our children’s future is not harmed by this. Obviously if such aid is not forthcoming, tough decisions will have to be made. Reading the tea leaves, though, I think education will be a top priority.
It amazes me that the people this County are still whining about the school budget.These people have no idea what the regulations require for kids with IEP’s and special needs. Believe me as I follow this new superintendent all she focuses on his budget. At what cost are students? A hard-working teachers that are underpaid and under appreciated? Do you all want about hard times but don’t think about the people that work in the schools in now are required to not only teach their own kids but continue to stay in contact with all the other students that are out there. You bring up things such as healthcare which I work in and we are all struggling. Take a break and focus on the good and the budget.
Lessons learned so far,
The schools are over funded, over staffed and poorly serve their intent. Homeschooling got its biggest boost in regard practical application. The bloated school staffing is being shown the door because frankly we don’t need all these folks to get the same result. Of course we expect the usual suspects to be here flying the “mo money, it’s the children” blimp over town when the next bloated budgets get launched. In regard staffing, let’s evaluate the need for and usefulness of all the ancillary and highly compensated admin types filling the parking lots for their cozy 9 month jobs. Social workers in schools, seriously? Send the problem kids home to the parents under a homeschooling exile clause.
Frankly, if dropping off your kidos in the morning is some sort of exercise in public dysfunction, as has been documented, then homeschooling is clearly your answer. You can rant, honk and yell at others from your own driveway. School sponsored sporting costs and associated transportation liabilities are completely shut down and the kiddos will still be graduating. Must be magic. These added cost activities should remain part of the past. Home “sporting” would appear to be a viable option.
How about the college, our favorite and largest tax loss in town and the source of many young adults that can’t seem to master crossing the street. Seems they kept all the high dollar admin folks warming chairs on the payroll. Critical thinkers alI, these essential staff, according to our one term gov. I believe the executive chef at the college is still available in case an emergency banquet breaks out or if the new yuk zombies need an evacuation B&B with catering.
In times of chaos’s there is a learning opportunity we can use to highlight exactly what we need, and don’t need. If we don’t need it now, we don’t need it. Budget accordingly, the taxpayers are watching you like a hungry hawk.
Interesting to see that at just the mention of a near $1 million school budget increase the liberal money spenders are already defending it.I have a solution.We can just automatically increase the budget by $1 million each year (unless they need more)until we run out of taxpayers that are able to contribute.
There you go Scott assuming things. Typical for you. I work in education! My kids right now are learning everything you say they possibly couldn’t being home schooled. Maybe being an educator at an overpriced college restricts you but not the rest of us. Maybe you should expand your mind. Involved parents make smart kids. Maybe our community needs more involved (down to earth, common sense) parents. Keep reading your tea leaves. My family will be growing ours.
Scott E. it would be interesting to know how many teachers spend their summers or any part of it working on lesson plans. Maybe a few dedicated , younger ones that haven’t got them fine tuned yet! Wonder why there’s bitterness towards school teachers and administration? Here are a few possible reasons. One year some $400,000 + was cut from the budget for “unnecessary” expenditures such as expired contracts still getting paid out.of the maintenance budget long after the high school was built. The reading, math, and science test scores not being up to acceptable state levels for years and STILL aren’t!. A BIG one is after being voted down at the validation , a budget is returned with little or no reduction. Another vote, another refusal, budget returned, vote ,refusal,until late summer. This happened several times during a couple of superintendents’employment in SAD or RSU 9.One year children were used to manipulate the voters by telling them there would be “no books to read”, sports would be cut, etc unless the budget passed. Hope this helps explain some peoples attitudes towards the school. I can remember when it was different… respect was there for the educators. There are other reasons for the change, maybe someothers will be posted to help youunderstand.
If I had a dollar for every time Scott Erb gave the argumentum ad hominem lecture…