Maintaining grades is probably one of the greatest stress factors that applies to any high schooler’s life. Certainly during my highschool career there have been very few moments where there wasn’t some part of me worrying about a test or schoolwork. Powerschool is especially daunting with its big letter grades always in your face. The recent school-wide change helps relieve a little bit of this stress. When assignments are not turned in or are completed poorly, there is now a minimum of 50% applied in the gradebook.
This change is extremely helpful for students like myself who can be big procrastinators at times. Now, just because an assignment is late or missed doesn’t mean my grades will plummet. If an assignment is missed and a particular teacher has rigid deadlines, it won’t become the end of the world. Thus, I will not feel the need to stress about anything.
From my parent’s perspective there is never a great reason for work to not be accounted for in Powerschool or Schoology. My mom has her push notifications on for my Powerschool, and every time something changes she makes sure to let me know. Although she has admittedly been better at understanding progressively through high school, I am hoping this change will make her worry even a bit less about my grades. Rather than having to explain each specific situation and the reasoning for every change, there simply won’t be a big dip every time an assignment is slightly late.
Acknowledging the stress relief benefits, ultimately this 50% bottom will not get you far in school alone. But while this change doesn’t pass students by default it does make passing classes much easier. The change gives a starting point to students who may not have engaged in a class well and are struggling to get back on track. A passing grade is only 60% so the bare minimum for a pass will require much less work and fewer assignments turned in than in previous years. Students who may have not even tried to catch up being so far behind have more incentive to do so knowing it won’t require as many fully completed assignments.
It is necessary to emphasize the importance of putting in work for classes. Attentiveness and hard work are the main steps to actually succeeding in classes and getting good grades. The change should relieve stress from a lot of students, and hopefully make it easier to keep up with classes and catch up when behind, but it won’t singlehandedly carry students through school.
