As the end of the semester nears, the next semester’s letter grades are likely going to remain hidden until quarter four. This fall, letter grades weren’t shown until November, around halfway through the semester.
Many students complain and advocate for letters to be shown year-round in Powerschool. A main reason for this is because they want to be able to see their progress and where they are at.
In quarters one and three, students need to click many links to be able to see standards grades, and even then, students are unable to see what the final grade would look like, leading to high stress and anxiety when grades do eventually get turned on the following semesters.
“It’s only stressful in the first place because they’re not there,” said junior Micah Gunderson. “If they were there the whole time, you’d [already] know.”
This year, grades were turned on around the second week of November, after quarter two has already started. With letter grades turned on, students can click one link to see grades for the entire semester, but without them turned on, students need to click links for individual semesters, leading to more confusion.
“There are separate assignments […] between the two quarters and [grades are] hard to find, especially if you don’t remember which [quarter they’re] in,” Gunderson said.
Many students also have issues with teachers concerning grades, because different teachers grade things differently. For example, some teachers take the average grades of a standard and some take the highest grades of a standard. Many students, such as junior Zane Hruska, have trouble seeing their progress.
“I can’t see where my grades are at until they turn them on,” Hruska said.
Additionally, turning letter grades on might help students find out about missing tests or essays, because letters change immediately, while there is no obvious change in the standard grades.
“[Turning letter grades on] will create a lot more clarity between the teacher and the student,” Gunderson said. “And if students are missing summatives, they know about it.”
Some students feel more motivated when letter grades are turned on because they can directly see the grades on the main Powerschool page. Seeing what a final grade could look like can make students take action faster, whether it be a retake or a makeup test.
“ It gives us more motivation if we’re able to see our actual grade. Otherwise, it just seems like we’re trying to do assignments for no reason,” Gunderson said.
In the past, the administration has said that they want students to focus on being proficient in the standards instead of focusing on letter grades. However, the success of students in college applications and scholarships depends on students’ GPAs and transcripts.
“You should know your GPA, and you can’t know that unless they turn letter grades on, so it’s kind of counterproductive,” Hruska said.
More people than just Gunderson and Hruska care and complain about the current system in place.
“Pretty much anybody that I’ve talked to about letter grades doesn’t really like how they are right now, and thinks they should be up year-round,” Gunderson said.
Overall, there are arguably many more reasons to turn on letter grades year-round than to keep students from seeing them. As the next semester approaches, we hope that the administration decides to turn letter grades on instead of keeping them off.
