RETROACTIVE HONORS RECOMMENDED!

On June 25th, Superintendent Dale recommended that FCPS retroactively provide an extra weight of 0.5 quality points to courses in math, science, English and social studies taken for high school credit during high school or middle school. Superintendent Dale did not recommend that FCPS weight any foreign language courses or music/art/drama courses, other than AP or IB courses in those disciplines. According to Assistant Superintendent Peter Noonan, the general idea was to weight core academic and not to weight "electives."

Superintendent Dale did not recommend weighting science or technology electives such as DNA science and quantum physics at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology (TJ), but recommended weighting all of TJ's social studies electives. School Board members questioned why FCPS should weight an unlimited number of TJ's social studies electives but not TJ's challenging science and technology electives, many of which are prerequisites for TJ's required senior research laboratories.

For your convenience, FAIRGRADE has compiled a complete list of courses recommended for 0.5 honors weighting and the list of approved dual enrollment courses that are retroactively weighted by 1.0 quality points into the charts you see below.  

High-Achieving Base High School and TJ Students:

Extra Quality Points for Required Classes Typically Taken During High School

Superintendent Dale’s recommendations would require typical TJ students to take more unweighted courses than comparable base high school students.  The chart below analyzes credits required for the FCPS Advanced Diploma and the TJ Diploma.  It assumes that these students took 3 courses for high school credit during middle school: Honors Algebra 1, Honors Geometry, and the first year of a foreign language.

Of 28 credits, these base high school students take about 19 credits to fulfill Advanced Diploma requirements.  Of those 19 credits, 6 must be unweighted, 8 can be honors, and 6 can be AP classes.  Base high school students also have 9 unconstrained electives, which they can use to take unweighted, AP or post-AP courses.

Of 28 credits, typical TJ students take 24 credits to fulfill TJ Diploma requirements.  Of these 24 credits, 8 would have to be unweighted, 12 would be honors, and 4 could be AP classes.  TJ students also have 4 unconstrained electives, which they could use to take unweighted, honors (social studies only), AP or post-AP classes.

Students can create time for more unconstrained elective credits, such as by taking summer school classes or placing out of classes.  Students vary in how they use their extra elective periods.  The Superintendent’s proposed weighting scheme would give TJ students an incentive to take more social studies and fewer science classes.

The following tables provide details on courses typically taken to satisfy diploma requirements by similar base school and TJ students.  The information in the tables below were used to generate the summary table, above.

The table below compares the high school schedules of two similar students.  The table illustrates the combined impact of different diploma requirements (Advanced Diploma versus TJ), different standard course sequences and options, plus Superintendent Dale’s weighting recommendations.

*FAIRGRADE will post additional updates as soon as we obtain accurate and consistent information about the implementation process and timeline that FCPS will follow in weighting honors courses.

CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLAN

In response to FAIRGRADE's request, FCPS has stated that it is planning for post-implementation analysis of the new grading scale and grading policy.

FCPS officials informed FAIRGRADE that FCPS will analyze how grade distributions under the new grading policy compare to grade distributions under the old grading policy. FAIRGRADE will also continue urging School Board members to establish a task force that includes parents and FAIRGRADE representatives, to ensure that the post-implementation data is collected in a transparent and unbiased manner. FAIRGRADE will also urge FCPS to make this data available - by high school - to parents in the years to come.

FAIRGRADE'S FUTURE

FAIRGRADE will continue to keep parents informed of all developments surrounding implementation of the new grading policy. In the coming weeks, we also will send an update about FAIRGRADE's plans to transition into a broader organization that will continue serving the parent community by providing information about the many policy and budgeting issues challenging our school district in these difficult economic times, and information about upcoming School Board elections.

Thanks to you and the 10,000+ coalition of FCPS students, parents, supportive teachers and principals, we all made real and positive changes to Fairfax County Public Schools through FAIRGRADE!

Please stay involved! FAIRGRADE needs you and our schools need you!