After a meeting among district counselors, the Roseville Joint Union High School District board decided to grant a grade bump to current seniors if they took a college course at either Sierra College or American River.

Last October, the RJUHSD school board decided to not award a grade bump from community college enrichment classes for a high school student’s GPA in first-level classes in series such as Psychology, Government, Economics and US History. Any student graduating after the class of 2017 will not receive the grade bump for these classes.

RHS counselor Jason Bradley says students will still receive a grade bump for any course in which there is a “prerequisite” in the same department, as introductory courses weren’t valued as challenging enough to warrant a grade bump.

According to RHS counselor Graciela Fernandez, awarding the grade bump to current senior students who took community college classes this summer was the most just approach to the topic.

“It was felt that allowing the grade bump through the summer would be the most fair to all students. For example, if we switched to the new policy immediately, then a student who took Economics this past summer would not receive a grade bump. However, if a classmate of theirs had taken Economics the previous summer, they would have received a grade bump,” Fernandez said. “Thus, by extending the old policy through the end of this past summer seemed to be the best thing to do given the new board policy.”

According to Fernandez, as of the first day of school in August, any student who signed up for a community college would adhere to the new board policy regarding weighted grades.

Some students took the courses over summer to receive the grade bump, some took classes to allow more room in their schedule during the school or to graduate early.

Social science teacher Mark Andreatta feels it is not fair to give students the grade bump because they are already receiving college credit for the course and does not feel the future drop in credit for the classes will have an increase in enrollment in his classes.

“I average four to five AP sections a year with around 35-40 students per class. I don’t see a significant increase because of the grade bump policy,” Andreatta said. “I think enrollment will stay consistent to what is has been in the past.”

On the other hand, AP government teacher Dana Dooley feels as if she will see an increase in enrollment in her AP classes at RHS because students will desire the extra grade bump for their GPA.

“Without a grade bump incentive at college level, students may find it more enticing to take our college-level offerings at Roseville,” Dooley said. “Especially seeing as students earn a grade bump in our AP classes.”

According to Fernandez, RHS is not the only high school that will be grandfathering the grade bump for students only in the class of 2017.

“The meeting to decide to extend the weighted grade bump through the summer for eleventh grade students was attended by all district counselors,” Fernandez said. “As far as I know, all the other schools in our district decided to adhere to the policy of allowing the weighted credit through the end of summer, but only for eleventh grade students. Last year’s tenth grade students had to follow the new board policy beginning last summer.”

Junior Amanda Sjoberg took US History over the summer at Sierra College and strongly disagrees with the new policy to not award any student below the class of 2017 a grade bump.

“I think it’s unfair that high school students are putting the extra work in and exposing themselves to a new learning environment, only for all of the immense hard work to be the equivalent as an average CP course at Roseville,” Sjoberg said. “AP classes are designed to be taught at the college level, and so you are given a grade bump. But when taking actual college classes, you are not receiving the credit for it.”