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APS grade failure notice gets overhaul
District wants uniform system to warn parents
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When Highland High School Principal Nikki Dennis counted her failing seniors in February, she was worried and alerted her supervisors.
"We had a problem," she said of the 180 seniors with Fs.
But many of the failures didn't go away in March, April or May, even though counselors and teachers called parents and sent deficiency notices home.
With Highland's graduation set for tonight, about 40 seniors won't take part. But none of them were surprised; they'd known since February, Dennis said.
Still, Highland's system of notifying students and parents could be shored up, she said.
"Is our system 100 percent foolproof? No," Dennis said. "We're talking about how to strengthen it."
The entire Albuquerque Public Schools system will beef up its notification process for the 2007-08 school year, Superintendent Beth Everitt said Wednesday.
She'll meet with high school principals next week to put a new process in writing.
Currently, high schools follow district policy requiring notification but their approaches differ. "We need it to be consistent across the district," said Joseph Escobedo, district spokesman.
"It is the responsibility of each high school to notify parents/guardians of students who are in danger of failure," the policy states.
"Schools must be able to verify that a failure notice was sent. . . . If the administration can verify notification was sent, failure on the part of the parent/guardian to receive notification does not constitute grounds for automatic passage of the student."
Everitt stopped the presses on printing new student handbooks so the new notification process and other tips for parents on how to advocate for their students are included for fall distribution.
The overhaul of the notification process follows a controversy at Rio Grande High School over a grade change that allowed the son of former school board member Miguel Acosta and Bernalillo County Commissioner Teresa Cordova to graduate with his class Tuesday.
The parents claimed they were not properly notified of failing grades and absences for their son.
Everitt said there was no documentation that the parents were properly notified.
"When a system breaks down, we should be erring on the side of the student," Everitt said.
She said she backed the decision of Rio Grande High Cluster Director of Instruction Elsy Fierro to change the student's F in English to a D, which allowed him to graduate.
Fierro asked a teacher to review the student's work, but the teacher was an employee of the cluster office, not the teacher who failed the student, said Rigo Chavez, district spokesman.
Chavez said a grade change could not be made without a review of the student's work. Ellen Bernstein, Albuquerque Teachers Federation president, said the Rio teacher claims there was no work to review and opposed passing the student.
"The teacher doesn't know what the district is talking about," Bernstein said. "They didn't get any work to grade."
The union has filed a grievance on the Rio teacher's behalf claiming her right to award a grade was violated.
Rio Grande graduated 287 seniors Tuesday. The senior class had 348 students. In April, the Rio senior failure list had 168 names.
The Tribune was unable to verify whether Acosta's son was on the April failure list.
About 40 students were planning to go to summer school to get the credits they needed for a diploma, said Rio Grande Activities Director James Chavez.
Everitt said Wednesday she took a straw poll of high schools to determine how many students were allowed to graduate at the last minute because they were able to pass a class they needed for a diploma.
At Sandia, there were 13 students added to the graduation list; at Freedom, 4; at Highland, 2; and at Rio Grande, 3.
Everitt said it's not unusual for students to "finish something at the last minute" to get a passing grade.
"Schools want to give them a second chance," she said.
