Proposes weighted credit for second quarter of AP Gov
BY JOHNNY MULLIGAN
[email protected]
After AP Government students did not receive the full semester AP grade bump they were promised, principal David Byrd is creating a proposal in order to give students the bump they feel they deserve.
At a monthly district principal meeting, Byrd brought up his proposal to the other principals of the district. If they all agree with the proposal, then Byrd plans to present it to the district board.
“Anything that’s gonna change starts with us,” Byrd said. “We are the principals, we all think this idea is worth going to the next step.”
Byrd’s proposal entails giving the unweighted nine weeks of AP Gov weighted credit. A 18-week weighted AP Gov course would grant students 10 total credits at the 5.0 grade scale.
“We want to try an idea where [a weighted] AP Gov class is not nine weeks, it’s 18 weeks,” Byrd said. “I feel like nine weeks is not even respecting the material.”
Senior Assata Baker, who took AP Gov in the fall term and created a petition for the class’s grade bump with senior Nilab Habib, hopes that future classes throughout the district receive the grade bump for both quarters.
“I think overall, after any proposal, I would like to see that AP Gov and Econ would be both [weighted],” Baker said. “From the beginning, it was a good idea to go to our district and recommend [weighted] credits at each school,”
Byrd wants to gain the support from the other principals before he brings the proposal to the district board.
“So I put this out on the table with my colleagues and some of them said ‘We know about that’ and one said ‘I like that’ and another said ‘I’m leery about that idea,’” Byrd said. “So I said ‘I’m gonna go back and [later] this week you’re gonna get a more formal proposal.’”
According to AP Government teacher Dana Dooley, the principals will be easy to persuade if all of the district receive equal weight for their AP Gov courses
“I don’t know why it wouldn’t be an attractive offer for the other principals or other AP Gov teachers because this affords them more time to cover more content,” Dooley said.
Granite Bay High School principal Jennifer Leighton agrees with the idea of weighted credit across the board for both AP Gov and AP Micro- or Macroeconomics if she feels the grade bump is justified for the amount of work done by the students.
“We would love to offer twenty credits for both AP Gov and Econ, but there needs to be a year’s worth of work in AP Econ to warrant the extra credits,” Leighton said.
Baker believes this reflects positively on Byrd’s character.
“I think that’s really great of him that he took the effort to go in and help the problem,” Baker said. “I feel that he actually cares about what the students want, what the school wants in general. This is a good idea and I give him a lot of credit for that.”
