'Grade Tampering' Alledged at DHS

Dale Steichen, a parent of a student at Danbury High School, spoke at last Wednesday's Board of Education meeting about concerns with mid-term examinations. He asked many questions of the board, and most of them have gone unanswered until now. His most pressing complaint was his suspicion of grade tampering.

 A decision to adjust the weighting of grades at Danbury High School had not been passed onto parents, and Steichen wondered if grades could be changed to suit the needs of the school. Steichen wanted to know, “Is it fair to change the grading process without informing parents and students?”

Communication seemed to be the bottom line for some parents and administration. Irving Fox, Chairperson of the Board of Education said, "Everybody should be privy to the same information."

"We could have done a better job of communicating some of this to the parents. We know there is room for improvement there,” said Deputy Superintendent William Glass, Ph.D.

However, there was more to the issue than simply communication. Parents at last Wednesday's meeting also questioned the decision to change the grading process and whether or not the the process was fair for each student. The changes in the process were caused by winter weather cancelling school repeatedly, which put off pre-test reviews in most classrooms.

According to Robert Rossi, Ph.D., and Danbury High School Principal, this decision to change the process wasn't made by him alone. “The decision to adjust the grades was revealed in a meeting attended by close to 200 teachers and staff members. This was an emergency situation, not something that was done at whim.  There had been no consistency in the students' education. They were not going to be able to do their best on the mid-terms, which was not their fault. There had just been too many missed days of school,” he said.

 Some schools in the area, such as Ridgefield and other schools in Fairfield County, eliminated the tests altogether. Rossi received more than 50 emails from students who requested that the mid-terms be cancelled and he sent several emails in reply before finally inviting the last fifteen of those students to his office to discuss the importance of the mid-term grades with them.

 “At a meeting on Jan 28, we decided it would benefit the students if we changed the grade weight to only 10%. That decision was made with Department Chairs, AP teachers, and a cross section of representation,” said Rossi.

A letter to parents detailing the grading system for mid-terms was posted on the high school's website the day before the Board of Education meeting. To see the letter, http://www.danbury.k12.ct.us/dhsweb/main/exam%20explanation%20letter.pdf

English teacher Tom Porcelli said, “The meeting was normal practice. It was a crazy time, we were given some information that a decision had been made by the Leadership Team about making the mid-term grades 10% of the student's grade. Some teachers thought that since we were trying to do something positive for the kids, maybe we should go back to normal grading of 20%.”

 “On Jan 31, a group of people including the Superintendent decided the test grades would only be changed to 20% if it helped the students,” said Rossi. If there were students that would be hurt by it, we would keep it at 10%. Students who failed or did not show up for the test would be given a 50%.”

Steichen worried that this gave some students an unfair advantage and perhaps could even be considered immoral. At the school board meeting, Steichen said, “I wish I received half pay when I didn't show up for work.”

 Students have wondered what kind of message was being sent if grades could be changed to suit their needs. In fact, Rossi's position was that it wouldn't change that much, and it would only be used to benefit students whose grades would surely suffer as a result of lost snow days. He said, “A good student will always study and will always do well. A poor student is not going to do well if they don't study.”

Glass said that there is a trend across the country to adopt a policy of allowing failing students to receive a test grade no lower than 50%.  He said, "This is not to increase the data of making students appear more successful. Instead, it gives students who were struggling, but working hard, the opportunity to see their improvement. A student would not be able to see noticeable differences in his grade average if the grades were averaged from zero to one hundred percent, he would only have a fifty on his test. However if he fails with only a fifty percent and he gets a hundred on his next test test, he will average a seventy-five and he has a better chance of really seeing his grade average reflect his hard work.”

 As one feshman put it, "I'm glad the mid-terms weren't worth much. The teachers couldn't teach anything. We couldn't review."

Rossi explained that there were benchmarks that the school had to meet with the State but the benchmarks were also needed internally. He said, “We need to see where we are.”

 According to Glass, “Under the high school improvement plan we had to capture data. We wouldn't have had that data if we had cancelled mid-terms.”

 The pressure to complete the mid-terms in the alotted time was based on the school calendar. Rossi said, “We try to complete each quarter in 45 days. For a school where we are right now, we can't lose additional days. We have only about 150 days of classes, we lose 8 days to testing, 5 days to the CAPT tests. We really need to look at the schedule. If we had kept all the days, we would have to school until June 27-it gets hot here, some of the classrooms hit 90 degrees.”

 At the Board meeting, Steichen had also felt it was unfair that AP students were able to bring their mid-terms home. He wondered if this might have given the students too much of an opportunity to cheat. Rossi said, “The decision to take the tests home was made by the AP teachers. Not all of the AP classes made that decision, and for those who did, the entire test was not allowed to be taken home, just the multiple choice kind of questions. The free parts of the test that really showed what the student knew were taken in the classroom.”

 The decision was approved because AP classes are more rigorous and have even less calendar days than other classes. Test scores for all AP tests must be reported to the colleges by May 5, and the AP teachers wanted to use the mid-term's two hours for class time.

 Steichen also raised concern that Rossi favors AP students. He cited a tile wall that will be installed detailing AP student successes and he was worried that the tile wall would be an expensive process. However, the tiles Rossi is installing are regular inexpensive bathroom tiles that the students will paint themselves.

 Rossi defended his focus on AP students by saying, “In terms of AP classes, every student who wants to take them should be able to. In Arizona, where I was principal before before, there was much less stress on education. Those students didn't have the kind of funding and resources students in Danbury have. Yet even 35% of those students were able to take AP classes. Those classes make a difference to any student applying to college. Every kid who wants to take them should be able to.”

 Rossi said, “Before I came to this school, 45% of the students from DHS were taking remedial English in college. There was no set curriculum, and each teacher could teach what they wanted. English 1 varied in materials and difficulties depending on the teacher. I brought in a curriculum that would guarantee that every student received instruction in the basics. The benchmarks will now truly show us how the students are doing because they are all set to the same standard.”

In terms of so many shifts in DHS's standards, Glass said, “We brought Rossi in here to bring massive change. We have had six principals in ten years, it's been a challenging environment. The way things were going here, I had to change this school fast, and this change is happening at a degree that people don't know what is happening."

Rossi agreed that change was needed immediately. He said, “The work has been overwhelming. We had kids failing at such high rates and we were teaching classes that were on a junior high, even a sixth grade, level. Last year, 49% failed a class in their freshman year. This year we have it down to about half that. This was a failing school with pockets of excellence. There were four kids who graduated last year and got into Yale, but there were also too many kids who weren't progressing. There was still tracking going on here, most schools stopped that in the 1980s. We are moving in the right direction now. Everything we do here now is based on what is good for all of the kids. Some people aren't happy about that.”