By Sarah Meiselman
The new Fulton County grading policy has changed the way the semester averages are calculated for students. As the end of the semester draws nearer, students and teachers can see that it has also changed the way North Springs High School closes off the year.
As seen in the schedule above, Monday December 5th will be a regular B Day. Tuesday December 6th will be a synchronous remote day, in which teachers will have office hours on Microsoft Teams for any students with last-minute questions. From Wednesday December 7th through Friday December 9th and then picked back up again on Monday December 12th, students will go through their regular schedules, except each day they will take tests that count as their last major grade of the semester. Each day is specifically for two classes so that students do not have to take four tests in one day, but they will have to attend all four classes. Wednesday will be used for the last tests of periods 3B and 4B, Thursday for 3A and 4A, Friday for 1B and 2B, and Monday for 1A and 2A. There will be no crew time this week and in the classes that are not giving a major, teachers can still give practice and minor assignments.
From Tuesday December 13th through Friday December 16th, classes will run on a half-day schedule, just like last year, but instead of being used for finals or tests, the class time will be for recovery. Tuesday will be recovery for classes 3B and 4B, Wednesday for classes 3A and 4A, Thursday for classes 1B and 2B, and Friday for classes 1A and 2A. Mr. Hanson, the principal of North Springs, wrote in his email to teachers, “Each of the last 4 days is tied to a specific class for recovery…Each of the last 4 days is an early release day, meaning students will have basically 4 hours each day to do recovery for the class that day.”
Recovery is only for students needing to retake major assessments of the most recent unit that they previously scored below 70% on. Recovery could be students redoing work that has already been assigned, doing work equivalent to work previously assigned that will help students get to the grade level they need, or doing any type of alternative assignment that will allow students to show mastery of the content and standards they have been lacking in. Attendance during this week may not be required, depending on the student and class, so it is recommended that students communicate with their teachers to see if they will benefit from coming to class. If a student has recovery in their first class but not in their second class of the day, they are asked to follow their schedule through until the end of the half-day anyway, since they are already at school. Students will be marked absent if they do not come to class during recovery week, but these absences will not have any harmful consequences.
Mr. Hanson explained that recovery week is for three types of students. First, ones that are currently passing their class, but did not do well on the last major assessment given the week before. Second, ones that have a grade ranging from 55-69%, This is for them to try to bring their grade up to a 70%, which is passing and would make them not need to attend credit recovery when we return in January. Third, ones that have a grade lower than 55%. Their goal is to get their grade up to 55%, at which point they would be eligible for credit recovery when returning to school in January.
It’s important to note that AP classes may continue to teach during the week of December 5th and give their last major assessments to students during recovery week. Because AP courses are packed with so much information, teachers need all the time they can get to teach their students the material. As the last major, teachers can give a cumulative assessment that mirrors what students will face on the AP exam in May, but it cannot count for a higher percentage of students’ grade averages than any of the other major assessments they’ve had throughout the semester.
This new schedule closing off the semester is unlike what most teachers and students have seen before, but it’s intended to minimize stress for students. They will no longer have to stress about studying for recovery tests in January for the last majors of the semester that they fail, since they’ll be able to get everything made up before winter break. Mr. Hanson explained that with the plan, administration hoped, “[To give] students an opportunity for recovery before the winter holidays, knowing full well that after the holidays it becomes very difficult to provide meaningful recovery for our students.”
Additionally, the new schedule is a result of the new Fulton County grading policy that eliminates the ability for teachers to give tests that count for a higher percentage of the grade than any of the other tests of the semester (in other words, tests that count as 20% of the grade or have in some other way their own category for the calculation of a student’s grade’s average) or to give tests that take up more time than one class period.
