Santa Maria high school district to finalize new grading policy at Thursday board meeting

Laura Place, Santa Maria Times, Calif.
·2 min read

Feb. 25—The Santa Maria Joint Union High School District will hold a special board meeting Thursday evening to finalize an interim grading and graduation requirement policy for students during the 2020-21 school year.

After calls from students to adopt grading systems that focus on learning progress rather than punishing students for learning difficulties during distance learning, the school board introduced three new options at a Feb. 10 meeting.

The options, if adopted, would allow students to replace first semester grades with higher second semester grades, permit seniors to graduate with the minimum state credit requirements on a case-by-case basis, and allow the use of "incomplete" or "no-mark" designations to prevent GPA impacts.

"We are considering various temporary amendments to board policy related to grades and graduation credits to mitigate the impact that distance learning has had on student achievement this year due to the pandemic," Superintendent Antonio Garcia said. "These changes will provide our students with different opportunities to be able to improve their grades and/or graduate on time."

While students have also pushed for the district to eliminate F grades, a practice adopted in January by the Santa Barbara Unified School District, the board did not move forward with that option.

In the fall semester, the district saw a 37% increase in Fs from previous years, a rate which has improved slightly in the months following but still remains higher than normal.

Truancy rates, or the number of students with more than three unexcused absences, from the first month of the school year also were high. Between Righetti, Santa Maria, Pioneer Valley and Delta high schools, rates were as high as 68%, the district reported in September.

The special meeting of the Board of Education will take place at 5:45 p.m. on Thursday over Zoom. Livestreams of the meeting will be available in English, Spanish and Mixteco on the district's YouTube page.