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BREA : Trustees Weigh Ban on Pass/Fail Option

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The Brea Olinda Unified School District Board of Education is drafting a policy prohibiting students from taking a course for “pass/fail” grade in academic courses.

The policy is being written by a committee made up of teachers, administrators and school board members in an attempt to prevent inappropriate grade changing. District officials revealed last month that former Brea Olinda High School guidance counselors switched hundreds of students’ letter grades to simple “pass” notations to boost grade-point averages.

According to school board members, the problem began years ago when the high school’s math department decided to give students incentive to take challenging math courses without fear of getting a letter grade that could lower their grade-point averages and class ranking.

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But the practice ballooned and expanded to other courses, district officials said. Then this fall, administrators found that former guidance counselors changed more than 360 grades from the previous year without teachers’ permission, violating the state’s education code.

To avoid further violations, trustees formed a committee to work on a policy, spelling out grading practices.

At Monday’s meeting, Trustee Lynn Doucher said the committee was considering recommending that the pass/fail option be eliminated from grading in academic courses.

In addition, the committee will consider abolishing the ranking of students except for the valedictorian and salutatorian to ease some competition among students, Doucher said.

“We’re trying to correct something that obviously has gone astray over the years,” Trustee Frank Davies said.

The school board is expected to make a final decision on a grading policy before school starts in the fall.

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