This high school test retake policy is wild

[Anonymous]

FCPS official policy is that all students must have the ability to earn up to 100% at least twice on summative assignments (whether through retakes or grade replacement) and that the highest score stands. Grades cannot be dropped if you do worse. Grades cannot be averaged. If a teacher is doing this, they are not following the mandate we were all given at the beginning of the year.

-hs teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First assessment in the books and as expected, the only kids coming to use for retakes are the ones who scored 90%.

The kids who need the retakes don't ever take them because most of them got that grade by barely doing any work in the first place. They're certainly not interested in doing even more work in order to score a higher grade on an assessment they didn't care about in the first place.

We tried to tell parents at BTSN that it's going to be way too stressful for these kids if they plan on taking every, single test in all their classes twice in order to try to raise their grade on each of them. Parents all nodded in agreement but here are their kids...taking every test twice trying to eke out a few extra percentage points.

I suspect what will happen is that after awhile, many of the kids will realize that they either can't score higher the second time around OR that it barely has an impact on their grade to go from a 90 to a 92 and that it's not worth the effort.

Maybe. But the higher your grade in a class, the lower the score you need on a final exam. My son is a junior and his school did not have this policy his last 2 years. I have no idea if he will ever do a retake. I do know he is very grade focused. He is big on beefing up his grades early in the year, Q1-2, to allow for slips in the spring when he finds it harder to focus (be it good weather, being almost done, who knows). Last year, without retakes, his goal was to make his finals meaningless. In other words, he only had to score 30s or 40s to keep his A. He worked his butt off to make that happen. So retake policy or not, kids fight for every number they can. I do not know, but I suspect if he can retake a 90 to get a 100 he will so his final exam is not a stressor for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is such a stupid policy and a real slap in the face to teachers at a time we should be improving their job not making it harder. Also what does it do to gpas? For the first time I am saying what I see on here all the time - I am glad I am almost done with fcps.

-parent of 2 fcps grads and one fcps senior

Maybe so, but if it’s policy, my kids will take advantage of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS official policy is that all students must have the ability to earn up to 100% at least twice on summative assignments (whether through retakes or grade replacement) and that the highest score stands. Grades cannot be dropped if you do worse. Grades cannot be averaged. If a teacher is doing this, they are not following the mandate we were all given at the beginning of the year.

-hs teacher

Does this apply to IB classes as well? If so, game changer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS official policy is that all students must have the ability to earn up to 100% at least twice on summative assignments (whether through retakes or grade replacement) and that the highest score stands. Grades cannot be dropped if you do worse. Grades cannot be averaged. If a teacher is doing this, they are not following the mandate we were all given at the beginning of the year.

-hs teacher

Does this apply to IB classes as well? If so, game changer.

It should not be allowed in AP or IB or else what justifies the 1% GPA bump? Get rid of that if they get the same mollycoddling as everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS official policy is that all students must have the ability to earn up to 100% at least twice on summative assignments (whether through retakes or grade replacement) and that the highest score stands. Grades cannot be dropped if you do worse. Grades cannot be averaged. If a teacher is doing this, they are not following the mandate we were all given at the beginning of the year.

-hs teacher

Does this apply to IB classes as well? If so, game changer.

Great question.

If it does apply, it can only affect the FCPS grade. IB isn’t going to allow retakes on its assessments, the ones used to actually determine the IB score and whether a student gets college credit.

I can easily see a student getting an A in the class because of this policy, but then failing the IB assessments.

[Anonymous]

Could someone please post a link to the policy?

[Anonymous]

Equity is at the center of everything we do.

[Anonymous]

wow, this is really going to hurt the organic high achievers.
When you water down the top, the kids it hurts the most are the strongest students. Suddenly a 4.0 UW means nothing because there are an additional 50 kids in the grade who had it who would not have with the old policy.

You guys are are rejoicing in this should realize that it has a major downside with college admissions, etc. It will make it even harder to get those elusive UVA spots that are almost 100% based on how you do relative to your classmates. Remember, your greatest competition (for UVA or Harvard) is always kids from your own school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s very unusual! What will these students do when they get to the real world?!

Yeah that test I took at my consulting job today was so hard

+1, it doesn’t matter if they had a 2.1 GPA or 4.0 at a state college, everyone has the same diploma and college listing on their résumé.

[Anonymous]

Coming from my own kids experience at MCPS with retakes...my high achiever almost never retook a test. I think what is being described here with kids retaking tests for a point or two will fade. Kids will realize it is not a good use of time. My struggling kid did retake tests...however it did not turn him in to an A student. If he got a D the first time, it did not magically turn to an A. Maybe a C!

[Anonymous]

My student is already finding that it's hard to find the time to retake a test. He has an active schedule with sports and leadership clubs and the teachers (understandably) aren't providing tons of time in which to do test retakes. And they shouldn't. But I think that alone will limit the amount of test retakes that actually occur and save the option for the ones that really need a retake. Also, my student has found that his teachers require extra formative work before doing a test retake (also understandable) and he doesn't want to do that just to bump up a grade by a couple of points if it was already a B+ or A.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s very unusual! What will these students do when they get to the real world?!

They continue to achieve. What do you mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meanwhile, Madison kids are not allowed a single retake outside of every third assessment.

And they can get As all year, but struggle with that last assessment and get a B and, surprise, that is your grade for the year!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid just got his first test back and did well, but said most kids are retaking anything under 97 so that they can be sure they are in good shape in case the final ends up being hard.

This seems like it is going to push the highly perfectionist crowd to insanity.

I hope the kids that really need the retakes are doing it too.

+1 This exactly. My DS studied really hard and got a 22/23 on his first history quiz and was agonizing whether he should retake it to try for a 100. He had so much other work and I convinced him it wasn’t worth the time/effort for one extra point. But it absolutely sucks that someone who got a 60 or 70 the first round could potentially get 100 on the second round and seem to be a better student than my son.

Sure. But a person who gets a 60 or 70 the first go around, likely is not capable of 100%.