Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students have not been able to attend school. Schools have been putting all of their efforts into creating new ways to help students not fall behind and finish the school year with the best education possible.
Many schools and universities are offering pass/fail grading, including Scott Community College. With this option, students can choose to take courses for Pass rather than a letter grade; the Pass grade does not calculate into a student’s GPA.
Many people are not certain if they want to take the pass/fail option, or if they should continue with standard grading.
Ann Berger teaches a psychology class at PVHS through Scott Community College. Her psychology students have been offered the pass/fail grading option and she thinks students should take up this alternative.
“What about students for whom online learning is very challenging due to technology issues; learning issues; no chance to work one-on-one with teachers and classmates on a daily basis?” Berger asked.
“When I teach, I check for understanding and confusion on a daily basis. We are not able to give kids the full spectrum of a classroom; our instruction is not at its highest quality,” Berger expressed. She believes if classes do not move to the pass/fail option, “we are grading privilege.”
Senior Maddie Einck is a student of Berger’s psychology class. She is one of the many undetermined students as to whether she should take the Pass option or not. “Online schooling is new and I’m not sure how hard it will be for this class and all my other classwork combined,” she stated. “So if I take it, then I would just have to make sure I pass and will have some stress lifted as I won’t have to worry about hurting my GPA.”
Many universities and schools are understanding of what everyone is going through and are trying their best to help students finish the year with as much success as possible.
Daniel Marvin, the Dean of Concurrent Enrollment and CTE through EICC, is empathetic of how difficult these times are for everyone. “We know this is a challenging time for students and we are very appreciative of how resilient they have been,” he stated. “We had emergency protocols in place prior to this happening. We will be taking the additional lessons learned these past few weeks to continue to revise and update the plan going into the future.”
Schools are taking this time to learn how they can improve their protocols for any future socio-economic or pandemic like issues. Pass/fail grading is one of the many ways schools are trying to help their students and many will be taking up this alternative.
