Rumors have been flying about changes to the report card distribution time, but does anyone really know what changed?
For years, Deer Park High School has been on a strict six week grading period, however, the administration has decided to throw a curve ball for the 2015-2016 school year. Now, instead of a report card being delivered every six weeks, students in all three Deer Park High Schools and Junior Highs will receive one every nine weeks. The students will also receive progress reports every third and sixth weeks. In all, there will be two progress reports and one report card distributed every nine weeks. This does alter some circumstances involving the number of grades accumulated and UIL eligibility.
“We think it will be more beneficial to students. They’ll have a longer period of time in which their grades will accumulate,” Jill Marsh, Dean of Instruction said. This also means students have more opportunities to influence and manipulate their assignments.
In the past, the progress reports did not decide a students’ eligibility for UIL. However, the 2015-2016 sixth week progress reports will count, both negatively and positively, towards the eligibility of the students. The administration is working to ensure “no one’s confused” by the adjustment. If and when someone – parent, student, teacher – has a question or is confused, they are able to contact Mrs. Marsh.
The changes allow students more time to pick their grades up if they don’t like where they’re at by the sixth week. Teachers are able to have more of an opportunity to help their students, should their grades not be up to par.
“It would not be changed if we didn’t think it was good for students,” Marsh said.
In addition to the length of time, teachers are expected to enter at least some grades by the end of each week and are now required to have a minimum of fifteen grades entered by the report card distribution. Students should definitely benefit from this alteration and it should be more of a peaceful transition between report card distributions. Both administration and teachers expect the best results with this change and desire the students reaction to be the same.