THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 27, 1996 TAG: 9609270526
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 75 lines
School Board members and the superintendent quickly distanced themselves Thursday from a proposed systemwide grading policy that is drawing intense fire from parents and teachers.
``The proposals have not been embraced by the administration or the School Board,'' Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. told about 150 people who packed into the board's meeting at Bay View Elementary, many of them to protest the proposal.
After a parent spoke in opposition to one proposal that essentially would let students decide whether or not to do homework, School Board Chairman Ulysses Turner said, ``You have done your homework, and I assure you our students will do their homework as well.''
School Board members Conrad Greif and Joseph Waldo also said they would do nothing to lower the school system's expectations of students.
``At a time when this board is holding teachers and administrators to new levels of accountability, we certainly expect our students to be accountable,'' Waldo said. ``We believe very strongly in homework and the accountability of students.''
The proposal, developed by a committee of central administrators, principals and teachers, was considered a work in progress and was quietly circulated for comment last month among PTA officers and the city's two teachers groups.
The goal, Nichols said, was to develop a consistent grading policy followed by all schools in the system. Schools and even teachers in the same schools have different practices for assigning grades.
But Turner and several other board members said they had not read the policy until media reports appeared Thursday outlining criticisms from teachers and parents.
Turner said he was ``shocked and disappointed'' after reading some of the proposals. Those drawing most concern from parents and teachers were ones allowing students to turn in assignments late, to get no grade lower than a 50 out of 100, to not be penalized for failing to do homework and to retake tests and redo assignments to raise their grades.
Parents who spoke Thursday made clear their dislike of those proposals.
``I want my daughter to know that she must do her homework or suffer the consequences,'' said parent Regina Thornton.
``Completing and turning in homework teaches responsibility and is something all children must learn,'' said parent Barbara Howard.
The concerns over the grading proposal headed a litany of issues voiced at the board meeting. Concerns ranged from ``excessive'' paperwork and the need for more planning time for teachers to pay for ``classified'' employees such as custodians and cafeteria workers.
Educators who feel swamped by nonteaching duties had a new complaint: This year, teachers at some city schools are being asked to chase down parents who pass bad checks to a school.
Under a new local policy, teachers can be asked to contact parents who have written checks that bounce. Parents write checks to schools for such expenses as field trips, yearbooks, student pictures, club fund-raisers and student lunches.
School office managers have the option to call the check writer to try to collect the money or to pass the task on to teachers or the principal. The policy is designed to help schools manage their school activity funds.
Marian Flickinger, president of the Norfolk Federation of Teachers, called the policy ``ludicrous.''
``Teachers are supposed to build a bridge with the parent, and making teachers bad debt collectors is a sure-fire way to get the bridge to crumble,'' she said.
The problem of bad checks is not huge, but is irritating, school officials say: In the 1994-95 school year, for example, one high school received bad checks totaling $778; it was able to collect about $228 of that.
But at a time when the school district is trying to generate more parental support for schools, having teachers trying to collect debts from parents does not help, Flickinger said.
Flickinger's organization rented a bus to haul in members to the meeting as part of what Flickinger called its ``School Board Awareness Forum.''
The Education Association of Norfolk also rallied its members. by CNB