A Memphis high school is telling teachers not to give grades below a 65, leaving some teachers feeling frustrated, reports WREG News Channel 3.
One teacher at Kingsbury High School shared an email with WREG that Assistant Principal Nora Jones sent to teachers Monday asking them to fill in missing grades for students.
“The grade floor at Kingsbury HS is 65,” the email said. “If you issued grades below a 65, please correct this also.”
The teacher said faculty members have to give a student a 65 even if the student didn’t come to class.
Keith Williams of the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association teachers union told WREG that other schools in the district have also set a grade floor to boost grades. He said he has expressed concerns about the practice at past school board meetings.
Williams said “you cannot give to students what they do not earn” and that principals do not have the right to put teachers in these “troublesome kinds of situations.”
There should be a uniform policy across the district, he said. The district’s grading policy doesn’t refer to minimum grades, according to WREG.
A Shelby County Schools spokesperson said they were looking into the matter at Kingsbury High School.
Several years ago, Metro Nashville Public Schools issued a new grading policy telling teachers they could no longer give grades lower than 50. The policy also removed penalties for late work and said students should be given opportunities to retake tests. The changes prompted concerns about grade inflation and were seen as an attempt to boost graduation rates.
And there are questions about why the students cannot perform at grade level. Looks like early indoctrination into the welfare system that has served America so well.
Haslam and Corker are disgusting humans. Both used the Republican Party to get elected, and then showed their true colors by turning against the people who elected them.
This is stupid! It encourages the students to slack off because the teacher is not allowed to fail them.