OXFORD – The task force created to evaluate Oxford’s grade weighting policy has failed to reach a consensus on the matter.
On Monday, Oxford High School Principal Janet Laytham updated the district’s board of education on the activities of the ad-hoc committee, which was formed at the board’s request after district parent and math teacher Pat Moore raised concerns about the ambiguity of the school’s current policy.
Laytham said the group, which consisted of 13 staff and faculty members, met twice, and had a great deal of discussion on the topic. In the end, however, they did not have a recommendation for the board.
“Right now our policy is that all courses are unweighted,” Laytham told the board. However, there is a certain degree of weighting in determining class ranking as those receiving Regents diplomas with advanced distinction are placed before regular Regents diploma candidates.
The administrator said the first phase of the process was to see how other districts within DCMO BOCES region handle grade weighting.
“This is something the local district decides,” said Laytham, explaining that some districts choose to weight grades while others do not. Norwich, Bainbridge-Guilford, Hancock, Otselic Valley, Sidney, Unatego and Walton are among the schools which do weight, she said. But even each of these schools differ in their determination of which courses are weighted, as well as the percentage weights assigned to them. “It varies widely from district to district.”
Why do districts weight grades? According to Laytham, it is a way to “compensate” or reward students who challenge themselves by taking more rigorous or advanced courses. In effect, it creates a “cushion” for their GPA, and ensures that those who take more rigorous courses are ranked above those who don’t in the class ranking.
From her conversations with administrators from other districts, Laytham said she wasn’t able to determine anything conclusive about whether weighting increases enrollment in higher level courses. One of the things they did learn however, is that weighting does not influence college acceptance, as higher-learning institutions remove the weight when examining grades.
Other topics of discussion for the committee included how a new weighting policy could be fairly implemented and how to define a “rigorous class.”
“It would be hard to decide,” she said, as all courses should have a degree of rigor.
In the end, however, the group did not reach a definitive conclusion.
“The task force did not reach consensus,” she reported, explaining that some members favored weighting for more rigorous courses, or for ranking purposes only not GPA. Others felt the current policy was “sufficient.” Another idea, which Laytham called a compromise of sorts, was to create another diploma designation which would rank above the advanced.
She said that, in her opinion, the next step in the process should be to more clearly define the district’s current policy. While there is one in writing, she said, “it isn’t specific enough.”
This vagueness was the cause of Moore’s initial concern, as he said he and another parent were given different information when they asked similar questions related to how their child’s GPA would be effected if they re-took a Regents examination.
Moore sat on the task force, and was in attendance on Monday. He raised concerns that he and other members had been told the presentation would take place at the Jan. 10 meeting. He also said he wished that there had been more parent participation in the process, something he said was prevented by the timing of the task force meetings, which were held in the afternoon rather than in the evening.
After some discussion, Board President Dawn Golden asked Laytham to provide the board with both the current written policy and the new version, which the administrator said she was in the process of crafting with the help of High School Guidance Counselor Kristopher Kaschak.
Golden said after the board evaluated the two, they would determine if the grade weighting task force should be reconvened.