Dear Vancouver School Board Members & Minister of Education Jennifer Whiteside,

 

Every Student Deserves a Fair Grade.

 

Many students in the Vancouver school district are still enrolled in "Option-4" home based learning, for a variety of reasons. Many of the students have received an incomplete or completely empty assessment/report card due to "Insufficient Evidence" of learning, even though substantial work has been submitted in many cases.

Parents and students have been submitting work, whether it is assignments given by the school, workbooks, or projects/assignments created by parents. Yet, this work has not been taken into consideration in many cases, or completely disregarded.

The ongoing pandemic is still underway, and there is no clear picture of what things will look like for the next school year, let alone the remainder of this school year. Because of this,  it is imperative that educators recognize that there will be those that will need to keep their children home, and adapt their grading and assessment methods to be inclusive of every child's situation. 

 

1. We call on the Vancouver School Board & Minister of Education Jennifer Whiteside to create new ways to fairly assess students, regardless if they are in class or at home.

Students have been at home on and off for almost 12 months. More than enough time to have a plan in place. Yet, nothing happened. The impact of this is multifaceted. Now with the extension of Option-4 to the end of the 2020/2021 school year, it is even more important that this is expedited. 

 

2. We call for a re-assessment of option-4 children's report cards to reflect the progress made so far. 

Students deserve to have their current assessment/report cards re-assessed to provide an accurate picture of their current learning and to reduce any negative impact from having an empty report card.

3. We also call for the elimination of unfair practices in the assessment process.

This is one known instance, but it was learned that a student who recently returned to in-school instruction for only 1 week was given a full assessment and report card, with much of the assessment made using the child’s home-based submissions. Option-4 parents have requested to have their empty report cards reassessed, only to be turned down. 

 

 

Sincerely,

The parents of Option-4 and those that support them