A Good Shift in GPA Calculating

Opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Raider Times staff nor its advisor.

As of September 6^th 2012, new GPA rules have been put into effect at Watertown High School. The new rules state that all classes that give a letter grade will now count toward the students’ GPAs. This includes all grades; freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. However, previous grades earned from the past years will not count toward the students’ current GPAs.

To some it’s a blessing because it might be the small change from a 1.9 to a 2.0 or a 2.9 to a 3.0. It even could mean the few extra points to qualify for National Honor Society. The new change may benefit seniors scurrying to raise their GPAs, allowing them to feel more confident about applying to colleges. It may also raise the GPA of the underclassman, making them feel more confident about the work they do. Headmaster Watson believes that it puts meaning behind the hard work and effort of the students.

Some may think the new change might be a bad thing; however that is not the case. The change in how a GPA is calculated doesn’t affect the grades earned by the students from the previous years, so any bad grades earned, if any, still won’t affect them negatively.  However a downside to previous grades earned not impacting GPAs is that the students who worked as hard as they could from the very beginning and earned A’s won’t have them count toward their GPAs.

The reason for the sudden rule change was because many new students and their families were confused by their GPAs. Most looked at their report card and saw lots of good grades with low GPAs. The confusion was unfair to the students and their parents so the change helps clarify the confusion. The change was decided upon during the 2011-2012 school year, but came into effect this year.  The Watertown School Committee agreed with school officials to go ahead and make the change. When the issue was raised to some parents, Headmaster Watson said that they all were for it and thought that it was a good and fair idea.

“The good thing about it,” says Mr. Watson, “is that all teachers will know their [classes’] grades matter.”  The change makes it fair for Career Technology Education classes because students who want to go straight into a career can use the credits earned for those career classes towards their GPAs. Mr. Watson also believes that there is nothing bad about the change as it benefits students in the long run by making it a “fairer system more clear to students.”

Nothing bad can come from it a change such as this. It can only help people, but I also think it is a bit unfair that all the good grades that sophomores, juniors, and seniors got in the previous years don’t count for this year’s seniors, juniors, and sophomores but will for the freshman.  It should be up to the students whether or not previous grades earned counts for them, which would mean going back and recalculating them. For example, some students have difficulty transitioning to high school, so being able to negate some of the impact of lower grades from earlier years would benefit this year’s classes.

All in all, it is a good change that does make the grading system better for the upcoming students’ GPA’s. It was a change that needed to be made.