Whether or not students should be granted passing grades in certain situations or allowed to fail was debated by the Sampson County Board of Education during the board’s work session earlier this week. The issue will be touched on again at the next regular board meeting Monday night, a meeting always opened to the public.
“I feel like, as a society, we are passing students along,” remarked board member Jennifer Naylor. “We are passing students along and they’re not ready for the next level…we have to stop this at some point, in my opinion, and if we don’t start now, when are we going to? We’re just gonna keep passing them along and lowering the standard.”
The issue began during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. At that time, school principals were given the authority to grant a grade of 50 to students in place of failing grades. Under North Carolina law — Principal Decision Authority — it states that school principals, rather than classroom teachers, have the ultimate legal authority to graduate, promote, or retain a student; principals may review and consider student portfolios and extenuating circumstances in making final decisions.
While the school board is legally not allowed to instruct principals to stop taking students’ extenuating circumstances into account when deciding whether to pass or fail them, there was a consensus Tuesday among some board members that they would like to make a statement standing against the continuation this practice.
“I am in complete agreement with Ms. Naylor,” board member Krystin McPhail attested. “Something’s gotta change. I know during COVID this was beneficial; you know, some of these kids were raising three or four babies at home (during school) because parents had to work, but I feel like outside of that circumstance, we’re past that.”
McPhail, like Naylor, is a former educator.
“In the conversations that I have had with so many of our other teachers here in this county,” she explained, “it is incredibly frustrating to know a kid has to do absolutely nothing. (Teachers) are bending over backwards and still having to give (students) a 50 on their report card.”
Jennifer Daughtry, executive director of high schools for the county system, offered a counter point.
“We’re motivating them with the 50 and the student can pass (the class),” she pointed out.
“It’s like a Catch-22,” she acknowledged. “I mean, either way, a teacher is going to have to be the one that bears the brunt, but it also causes problems, too, when we fail all of those students.”
Board chairman Daryll Warren joined the conversation, asking, “Did giving them the 50 actually help them pass the class?” he asked.
Daughtry took the question, answering, “We have had many where it did help them, and we have had some where it did not help, so therefore they failed the class and had to take it again.”
She acknowledged that “there are teachers who don’t want that same child back in their classroom, but we’re having to put them back in that classroom because they’re failing. … if we take away the 50, giving them that motivation to pass the class, that’s going to upset our teachers as well,” she pointed out.
“I get it; it’s a double-edged sword,” Naylor interjected.
Naylor and Daughtry both pointed out that ceasing to give grades of 50 would more than likely impact graduation rates.
“There’s two sides of this coin,” summarized Superintendent Dr. Jamie King. “I don’t know, again, that there’s a right or wrong answer here.”
The board agreed to continue discussing this issue Monday evening at 6 p.m. in the auditorium of the Sampson County Schools administration office, located at 437 Rowan Rd. All board meetings are open to the public.