The Hamden High School class of 2023 left the Board of Education meeting Sept. 20 disheartened after learning that the revisions to the school’s grading policy will not go into effect until after this year’s college application deadline.
At the end of the 2021-22 academic school year, it came to the attention of a few HHS students that summer gym classes are weighted differently than those taken during the school year. A group of students from the class of 2023 calculated their grade point averages, and found an inconsistency in the school’s grading policy.
Physical education classes administered over the summer have a pass-fail option, which means students can choose whether or not the course affects their GPA. PE classes taken during the school year, however, do not have that option. Students and parents called this an uneven grading scale, and is causing friction within the school.
“The imbalance has turned the school into a battleground,” wrote HHS senior Luca Ferrucci in a statement to the school. “This is an issue of fairness and equality.”
At HHS, the GPA scale ranges from 7.0 to 0. The scale weighs courses differently depending on the difficulty of the class. The levels offered at HHS are five, seven, nine and Advanced Placement. An A+ in gym class equates to a 6.0 GPA. This weighted score is equivalent to a B in an honors course, or a C+ in an AP course.
The students found that enrolling in a summer gym class serves as a grade booster, as those who have GPAs under a 6.0 can accept the grade and raise their average, while students with a GPA over 6.0 can remove it from their transcript. Meanwhile, all students who take gym classes during the school year do not have the choice of how it affects their grade, and are forced to accept it regardless of how it affects their average.
Some students raised concerns about the course’s GPA structure to the school at the end of the 2021-22 academic school year, however received little help, and some struggled to hear back from school administrators at all.
Since returning to school this August, students have been persistent in making a change, with a new sense of urgency ignited for their final year of high school. Over 20 students attended the BOE meeting on Sept. 13.
“I am here calling for immediate action because the early college application cycle is right around the corner,” said Weihao Lin, a senior student at HHS. “The deadline is Nov. 1, but Hamden High School needs to send our transcripts and recommendation letters before that.”
Over the past few weeks, students proposed a few solutions to the issue, such as removing the GPA weight from all PE classes or giving all PE classes a pass-fail option. The seniors’ main focus was not wanting to hurt anyone’s GPA, but instead trying to fix a flawed policy.
Jaideep Talwalkar, a parent of a senior at HHS, commends the dedication the senior class has shown towards solving the issue. He emphasized the attendance at the previous week’s BOE meeting, and stated “those four hours they spent at the meeting last week represented a small fraction of the countless hours that they have spent pouring over this issue.”
He additionally pointed to the work students have put in outside of the meetings, researching both potential solutions, as well as similar examples from the history of HHS to see how they were handled.
On Sept. 20, the board voted that effective immediately they will look into revising the Green and Gold Guide, the HHS student handbook, however the process is expected to take a few months, and will not be complete by the time college applications are due. The effort the class of 2023 put into making a change succeeded, but they will not be able to reap the benefits of their work.
“I just wonder how many freshmen even know that gym classes are weighted,” Lin said.
The board emphasized the legal consequences the school could face by changing grading policies in the middle of the year. Instating a pass-fail option for all gym classes would affect both students’ GPAs, and class rankings.
“Not only was the concern.. of legal concerns but we also had concerns in terms of the integrity of our calculations when it comes to working with college admissions offices,” said Melissa Kaplan, BOE chairwoman. “It also calls in question the integrity of our district, and all students are potentially harmed in that process.”
Although the class of 2023 was unable to rectify the unfair rule for their own benefit, the efforts they made will be beneficial to the HHS community moving forward.