APS Retake Policy change announced

[Anonymous]

It’s worrisome for strong students. If everyone has an A in APS grades will quickly be meaningless. Having a 4.0 in APS will mean nothing at all. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s worrisome for strong students. If everyone has an A in APS grades will quickly be meaningless. Having a 4.0 in APS will mean nothing at all. Ugh.

FCPS has a modification of the policy that aps adopted at the beginning of the school year and they do not seem to have issues getting people into colleges. FCPS schools are ranked in the highest in the state, many above aps schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s worrisome for strong students. If everyone has an A in APS grades will quickly be meaningless. Having a 4.0 in APS will mean nothing at all. Ugh.

It's fine. Someone is trying to get people riled up. It's not going to impact your kid getting into college. There are some grumpy people on here.

The retest to an A is already gone. Also, the kids who were doing that were generally strong students anyway. With the amount of remediation required, you weren't seeing a lot of C students doing the extra work and retaking a new test. Mine is one of those A students and retook one for a higher grade. The teacher had 3 hours of remediation and the 2nd test was harder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s worrisome for strong students. If everyone has an A in APS grades will quickly be meaningless. Having a 4.0 in APS will mean nothing at all. Ugh.

FCPS has a modification of the policy that aps adopted at the beginning of the school year and they do not seem to have issues getting people into colleges. FCPS schools are ranked in the highest in the state, many above aps schools.

At my kids FCPS, it is optional to allow retake but you can’t retake to more than an 80. I do think that student grades under the “retake to an A” policy will be viewed suspiciously. If colleges know about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My guess is that a lot of teachers were considering quitting mid-year. Everything they are being asked to do is just too much for them. Ten years ago quitting mid-year would have been incredibly bad form but now some teachers who stay actually applaud those who quit mid-year because it's so bad.

This. Anyone could see this was going to be bad idea when they drafted it last spring. But as usual, Syphax didn't listen. Now they have to change it mid-year because it's a ridiculous amount of work for teachers. The kids who want to retake are kids trying to raise from a B to an A. Teachers don't have time to help the kids who are below a B.

These are the kids that teachers have to focus on in the first place that slows down the class and prevents proper learning for the other kids to prepare for tests. Changing the re-take criteria to focus on the 80 and under crowd exclusively only exacerbates this divide in the intensified/AP classes instead of placing kids at their appropriate level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s worrisome for strong students. If everyone has an A in APS grades will quickly be meaningless. Having a 4.0 in APS will mean nothing at all. Ugh.

FCPS has a modification of the policy that aps adopted at the beginning of the school year and they do not seem to have issues getting people into colleges. FCPS schools are ranked in the highest in the state, many above aps schools.

At my kids FCPS, it is optional to allow retake but you can’t retake to more than an 80. I do think that student grades under the “retake to an A” policy will be viewed suspiciously. If colleges know about it.

Of course colleges already know about it. And at my DSs FCPS high school each course can decide their own retake policy. So all FCPS schools have to allow a retake to an 80 and then each course can decide if they want to go above it or stay with the 80. All retakes have to be offered and completed in two weeks with some exceptions. Also in FCPS, any work that is a reasonable attempt cannot get a zero. You must receive above a 50%. Only work that is not handed in can receive a zero. So FCPS has a more lenient grading policy than aps and has had one for years. Those kids have not gotten lazy and no one in FCPS has accused kids of making a mockery of the system. They have passed tons of AP exams, been national merit semi finalists, won science, history, literary, annd quiz bowl awards, etc etc. I don’t think the previous aps retake policy was a travesty. Yes- there could have been data driven revisions this summer, but ending it mid year based on teacher comments is not necessarily a transparent decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s worrisome for strong students. If everyone has an A in APS grades will quickly be meaningless. Having a 4.0 in APS will mean nothing at all. Ugh.

A 4.0 already mean nothing. GPAs over 4.0 are common now. Have you seen how many valedictorians they have at W-L?

[Anonymous]

Well. I agree. APS parents should be glad this policy is gone, rather than fighting to keep it for “mental health”

[Anonymous]

Ugh my kid is very stressed about this new policy. I don't think I realized how much he really cared about getting 100%s for everything 😞

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh my kid is very stressed about this new policy. I don't think I realized how much he really cared about getting 100%s for everything 😞

Then it’s good for him. Do you want him to go to college and get a 93% and freak out? Or worse, an actual B.

[Anonymous]

Were there any grades that were brought from 0-49 up to a 50? Maybe the 59 was already a gift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Were there any grades that were brought from 0-49 up to a 50? Maybe the 59 was already a gift.

Oops…wrong thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh my kid is very stressed about this new policy. I don't think I realized how much he really cared about getting 100%s for everything 😞

Then it’s good for him. Do you want him to go to college and get a 93% and freak out? Or worse, an actual B.

Of course not. I think it is just a bit of a wakeup call that we need to address his anxiety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s worrisome for strong students. If everyone has an A in APS grades will quickly be meaningless. Having a 4.0 in APS will mean nothing at all. Ugh.

FCPS has a modification of the policy that aps adopted at the beginning of the school year and they do not seem to have issues getting people into colleges. FCPS schools are ranked in the highest in the state, many above aps schools.

At my kids FCPS, it is optional to allow retake but you can’t retake to more than an 80. I do think that student grades under the “retake to an A” policy will be viewed suspiciously. If colleges know about it.

Of course colleges already know about it. And at my DSs FCPS high school each course can decide their own retake policy. So all FCPS schools have to allow a retake to an 80 and then each course can decide if they want to go above it or stay with the 80. All retakes have to be offered and completed in two weeks with some exceptions. Also in FCPS, any work that is a reasonable attempt cannot get a zero. You must receive above a 50%. Only work that is not handed in can receive a zero. So FCPS has a more lenient grading policy than aps and has had one for years. Those kids have not gotten lazy and no one in FCPS has accused kids of making a mockery of the system. They have passed tons of AP exams, been national merit semi finalists, won science, history, literary, annd quiz bowl awards, etc etc. I don’t think the previous aps retake policy was a travesty. Yes- there could have been data driven revisions this summer, but ending it mid year based on teacher comments is not necessarily a transparent decision.

I’m confused. My DC is at FCPS and was not allowed to retake a test she scored under an 80 on. Are you sure this is a FCPS policy?

The fact that APS can retake tests to an A and MCPS gives 1.0 bump for honors classes, illustrates the problems with comparing students from different school systems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh my kid is very stressed about this new policy. I don't think I realized how much he really cared about getting 100%s for everything 😞

Then it’s good for him. Do you want him to go to college and get a 93% and freak out? Or worse, an actual B.

Of course not. I think it is just a bit of a wakeup call that we need to address his anxiety.

I don’t think you are alone. The grade inflation is rampant and sets kids up for a belief that they should and can, without much work for many of them, be perfect. Without the negative feedback, they don’t learn how to really study or write or think critically. And, even more
importantly, they don’t learn resiliency and coping in the face of perceived “failure” (which, in my view, is way more important than any of the crud they are stuffing in their brains instead and will forget in a year.)