Policy Changes
On April 16th, Alief ISD caused mixed emotions among students when they announced that “4th marking period grades for the Spring of 2020 will not be used in calculations towards student’s GPA or class rank.” GPA and class rank have been traditionally playing a huge part in a student’s motivation and strive to take higher leveled advanced classes and is the base for college acceptance. Some students even go above and beyond to take all 5.0 classes but now that this term’s grade does not play in effect, students have expressed their opinions.

This sudden policy change was passed due to the current pandemic COVID-19 that has forced business owners and schools to shut down in response to the World Health Organization concerns of large crowds in order to prevent the widespread spread of the virus.

Ever since school has closed down, educational learning has moved online thus posing barriers for those who have no internet connection and have trouble learning without face to face interaction. Current junior Aquielle Richards verbalized that “Online learning poses a lot of difficulties with learning new material and how to interact with online materials, so I feel as if it would hurt a lot of people if this was not the case.” Considering the new policy change that some students are taking more 5.0 classes this term and now it is not reflecting in their GPAs, she says that “I understand how they could be upset, but so long as they were doing beforehand in the classes then it really shouldn’t matter. I don’t feel as if you should be upset because it’s not like anybody knew this was going to happen.”

Overall, Richards puts emphasis on how she “definitely feels like it’s the right thing, because it relies a lot of that stress over grades during a difficult time when people may have other major things to worry about.” The public media worldwide has emphasized how schools should strive to do the same thing in order to make sure that their students take care of their health as their first priority instead of a numeric grade.

Junior Asinah Cecil prompts a similar concern that “I do think it is the right thing to do. Unfortunately there are students who are being affected by the pandemic and their grades should be the least of their worries.” Although she believes that even if it is the right thing to do, she expresses another viewpoint that “I personally think they could have left ranks and gpa alone because it doesn’t necessarily determine who graduates. I do think that on the college level they should make changes on how they view the GPA’s due to the situation the coronavirus presents.”

Some colleges such as UC schools have changed their acceptance policy due to the circumstances of corona by announcing that they will not be requiring SAT/ACT scores for 2021 applicants.

Richards also prompts another alternative solution of this policy change in order to sympathize with those who are upset by this by saying that “I think that giving students an option whether it affects their GPA and Rank should be fine as well.”

On the other hand Giovanny Bargarran, a junior, will be negatively affected by this policy as he was one of the many who took an extra 5.0 class in hopes of it raising his GPA and rank. Even as he is able to understand why Alief proposed this change since, “if they were not to change it, they would have to be responsible for providing thousands of kids a electronic device and internet connection so they would be able to continue to work on their courses online,” he also explains how “I do not think this policy is fair” and in better context, he magnifies how this change affects kids who are taking AP classes versus those taking regular.

Bargarran explains the relation as “AP kids have been working and preparing for their exams so they will still uphold the responsibility to do the harder work load their teachers expect and even if they do not pass the AP exam, they should be rewarded of their hard work through receiving a 5.0 for their GPA whereas, regular classes are designed to have less workload but now both classes are leveled in grade point wise but not work load wise, it is not fair for AP students expected to do more work without the reward of a higher grade point scale.”

Many students have expressed their mixed emotions to their parents and through social media but will Alief ISD change this policy again to satisfy all students?