Bill Would Promise Teachers Final Say on a Student Grade

A school principal who overrules a teacher and changes a student’s grade could be fined from $500 to $5,000 under a bill passed in the state Senate last week.

The United Teachers of Los Angeles, the union that pushed the bill in Sacramento, says it will prevent school officials from caving in to pressure from parents complaining about their child’s grades or coaches whose star athletes have failed courses.

However, administrators say the measure would give no protection to students who have been unfairly or harshly treated by a teacher. They also label it a “blatant attempt by the union to intimidate” school principals.

The bill, now pending in the Assembly, grew out of two incidents in San Fernando Valley high schools.

In the first case, the principal at Granada Hills High School expunged an “F” from the record of a learning disabled student, allowing him to continue playing in the band.

“This kid was unfairly treated,” said the principal, Albert Irwin. “He was in a class where he shouldn’t have been.

“But I erred in not notifying the teacher of the change,” added Irwin, a move for which he got an official reprimand from the Los Angeles school district.

In the second case, the principal of Birmingham High in Van Nuys changed a student’s grade from a “B” to an “A” after he discovered that the 12th-grader had earned the highest number of points in the class.

“The teacher arbitrarily gave 40 points to another student for being the roll monitor and gave him the only ‘A’,” said Jack Jacobson, the principal. “I reviewed the case, talked it over with the staff and with her (the teacher). I told her I thought she was wrong.”

In the end, Jacobson changed the grade and the teacher lodged a complaint against him.

Wayne Johnson, the president of United Teachers of Los Angeles, said the union decided to take action because the district’s administration “did nothing about the (Birmingham) case.”

The principals “unilaterally changed the grades,” and the “administration did nothing about it when a complaint was filed,” Johnson said.

“We decided that if talking to the district didn’t resolve the problem, we needed legislation to make it illegal,” he said.

Johnson contends that teachers have been “under considerable pressure to change grades” since the Los Angeles school district said students must have a “C” average, and no “F”s, to continue participating in sports and other extracurricular activities.

The bill approved last week says that “in the absence of clerical or mechanical mistake, fraud, bad faith or incompetency . . . the grade determined by the teacher of the course . . . shall be final.”

“Any person who willfully changes the grade of a pupil . . . would be guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $500 upon a first violation and of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000 upon a second and subsequent conviction.”

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), originally would have made the violation a criminal one that could have cost the principal his or her job. But it was amended before last week’s vote and now calls only for a civil penalty.

Jim Donnelly, a lobbyist for the Assn. of California School Administrators, said his group is not bothered by the size of the penalty.

‘Good Cause’

“The question is whether you can change any grade for a good cause,” Donnelly said. “There is no appeal right and no protection for a student who had been dealt with unfairly.”

In Jacobson’s case, the Birmingham principal is convinced he acted correctly.

“I’ve been in administration for 30 years, and this is first time I’ve been involved in changing a teacher’s grade,” he said. “My position is that everyone is subject to review. If parent or student has a complaint, the principal should be able to review it and make a change if it is warranted. And that action should be reviewed by the superintendent.”