Many high school students spent the entire school year online, some without adequate technology or support at home, including English learners, homeless students, foster youth and other vulnerable young people.
Shifting a letter grade to pass/fail means what would have been a D or F, for example, won’t be included in the calculation of a grade point average — a critical part of a college application. There are no restrictions on how many course grades or which courses can be changed.
“When an F is converted to a No Pass, the zero credits are no longer factored into the GPA,” according to Dublin Unified officials in a letter to families about the option. “Similarly, changing a D or even a C letter grade to a Pass will likely increase a student’s GPA, depending on the GPA the student had prior to the grade change.”
Families can request the change for any course, even those required by the University of California, California State University system and many private colleges, which have agreed to accept the pass/fail grades.
San Francisco officials notified families of the change this week, with an Aug. 14 deadline to request the change.
The measure, authored by San Diego Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez aims to get children back on track in school after a long and difficult year.
“As a mom of three boys who were in ‘Zoom school’ during the pandemic, I saw how much our kids struggled to adapt to distance learning,” she said in a statement. “Knowing that hundreds of thousands of students across California weren’t able to log on at all during the past school year, it was clear we needed special interventions to help students overcome these unexpected setbacks.”
Families can apply for the grade change through their district offices.
*story by The San Francisco Chonicle
(*) www.WhitePrideHomeSchool.com
