The Manassas City Public Schools grading scale was a hot-button issue at the School Board’s community town hall Sept. 11, with parents asking the board to reverse the division’s “no zero” policy.
The School Board implemented a 50-100 grading scale and a no-zero policy in the 2021-22 school year. At the town hall, which covered four key topics, parents resoundingly rejected the grading policy. Other topics included the school system’s calendar, communications and school day start and end times.
After a brief breakdown of the four topics, attendees of the town hall broke out into small discussion groups. Those who sat in the discussion group on the grading policy, hosted by School Board Chair Suzanne Seaberg and board member Sara Brescia, did not mince words on the policy.
One parent, Ryan Steinbach, recalled the most recent time the board voted on the grading policy, which resulted in a 5-2 vote to maintain the current grading scale. The board at the time decided it needed more evidence the policy was not working.
Steinbach provided his own evidence of what he views as the scale’s failure.
“Years of provisional accreditation, years of academic performance that is well below that of our peers who have the same demographics as us, years of just kids being checked out and parent-teacher conferences …where the teachers are blaming the no-zero policy,” he said. “We are failing on every level.”
While Brescia has long been critical of the grading policy, Seaberg defended it – causing friction with many of the parents in attendance. Seaberg said she thinks differently as a parent than as a School Board member.
As chair of the board, she said, her No. 1 priority is student outcomes. When it comes to outcomes, Seaberg said, if a student has a bad first quarter and receives multiple zeroes, “they may never be able to bring that grade up.”
Others in the group argued that’s not necessarily true and pointed out students are given opportunities for reattempts.
Steinbach added there’s one key piece missing from the argument for a no-zero policy.
“One thing I think that is fundamentally missing from your philosophy is that there’s value in failure. We learn from failure, and we learn, ‘Oh my god, I can fail,’” Steinbach said. “We don’t allow a kid to experience that. If we convince them that they can’t fail, then we are putting them into a college system where they will fail.”
Steinbach, speaking directly to Seaberg, said he didn’t believe she would “do this” to her own children, and therefore she shouldn’t “do that to the children we put in your care.”
Ultimately, Seaberg said, parents can always set their own expectations for their children and decide what is best for them.
“Because I expect certain things from my kids, just like you all expect things from your kids, and there’s nothing holding you back from expecting more than what this grading policy is,” Seaberg said.
Brescia, along with parents in the small group, said there is – and should be in the policy – a distinction between a zero that’s “earned” through earnest effort and one that’s received for zero effort and not turning in work.
Brescia added she’s not aware of any school division that moved to a 50-100 grading scale and maintained a no-zero policy for no effort. Fairfax County was previously a 50-100 scale and no zero at all, but it has reintroduced a zero if no effort is made on the assignment after two weeks.
“I’m truly not aware of anybody who doesn’t recognize the distinction between these two,” Brescia said.
‘Exhausted’ teachers
Karen Huff, a retired teacher of 35 years in the school division, told InsideNoVa teachers are exhausted – in part, because of policies such as this one.
Huff, who taught elementary school, said the grading policy is failing even the youngest kids in the school system.
“You don’t teach children how to live and how to grow by making everything easy for them,” she said. “I’m 66 years old. The reason I can be what I am now is because of the struggles that I made.”
Huff clarified, though, she never made things easy for her students.
“I went and told them, ‘Sometimes you fall, but you got to get back up.’ Because it’s not the failing that’s the problem, it’s the staying down that’s the problem,” she said.
During the meeting’s question-and-answer session, the grading policy remained the largest point of discussion.
Steinbach asked the board what evidence the board used to support the change to the no-zero policy and what evidence is the board “clinging to” that supports keeping this policy.
Board member Lisa Stevens said she wants certain guarantees before agreeing to change the policy.
“I would want to be able to guarantee that changing the policy wouldn’t result in higher absenteeism rates, lower on-time graduation rates and lower SOL scores,” Stevens said. “We don’t have evidence that says that won’t happen if you change the policy.”
To the idea the board would seek guarantees before reversing the no-zero policy, Brescia said there’s almost no way to make decisions with guarantees.
“That’s an extremely high and unreasonable standard … we don’t set that standard for anything else,” Brecia said.
