Rock Hill School Board To Hear About Possible Grading Changes On Monday

Because there will be no business meeting in December, there will be votes taken during the November Work Session. Note that an executive session is scheduled for the first of the meeting - unusual for a work session. 
SCHOOL BOARD WORK SESSION  LOCATION: District Office  
 START:  5:30 p.m. 
 DATE:  December 13, 2010 
 ITEM#  
 Distinguished Climber Reception & Recognition Training Room 5:00 - 5:30 
 1 Executive Session - Personnel Matter     
 2 Grading - Huckabee (60 minutes) 
 3 Approval of Policy IKE - 2nd Reading Huckabee (2 minutes) 
 4 Approval of Policy IKD - 2nd Reading Huckabee (2 minutes) 
 5 Approval of Policy KHB - 2nd Reading Cox (2 minutes) 
 6 Facilities Master Planning Team -   Norwood / Kokolis (5 minutes) 
 7 K2 Spice Update Wilks / Norwood 15 minutes 8 Parent Portal Kokolis (10 minutes)  


Note. If you are easily offended, don't read any further.
I have a lot of questions concerning proposed grading changes - and - based on the calls I've received - so does the community.  The administration has promised all questions will be answered on Monday - and I'm sure the discussion will center around that - but it needs to be centered on how we are going to conduct business. The administration and  board need to recognize  serious process issues were made on this topic.

We are a public entity. In that light, we need to garner public support  through the process.  There needs to be transparency in what we do, particularly when there will be major changes to several schools and/or the changes are known to be controversial. The American School Board Journal suggests the following, "Parents are involved in grading policies regardless of whether or not you invite them to participate. The only question is whether parents are involved as partners in creating a solution". There have been informational meetings for parents, but no one I've talked with feels like a partner.  I would add  we should have had representatives from Winthrop, York Tech, and the Chamber of Commerce on the committee. Is this serious? It is if don't take steps to stop it from happening again. We should embrace failure just like success. Learn from our mistakes and make the process better. Some of the world's great successes came out of failures.

So, what about the grading policy changes? Well, if the administration  can show statistically significant data from their two trial sites at Saluda Trail Middle School and South Pointe High School (such as; end of course tests; SAT scores; and/or high school exit exams) - then the discussion should continue. We say decisions will be data driven, and, for this to continue, it needs to be the data that drives it, not research and/or opinions.

Jim