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Abby Huber

P. Gardner

Bloated Oysters

6 May 2021

Brighton Highschool proposal

Brighton High administration,

Henry Steele Commager once said, “Education is essential to change, for education

creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them.” (Commager). This year has been hard, no

doubt about it. We’ve all been doing our best to make this year better than it has been.

Throughout this year with the constantly changing schedule of in person classes, then hybrid,

then all online, it's been a lot for students. The leeway of grades and assignments teachers have

given, hasn't been good for students either. While I surveyed anonymous students, one student

said, “Everything seems more optional, or meaningless especially when we do online stuff”. The

majority of students who I surveyed, their grades have not gone down, their motivation has gone

down. However, I have found students' mental and physical health have gone way down. Even

before the pandemic, this has been a problem. They're getting the work done, it's just a drag to do

it. Students need to be challenged, but they need the freedom to express themselves and their

educational goals. Thus I have made a 3 step proposal on how we can solve this problem. My

goal of this proposal is to lessen the stress students are facing when it comes to grades, but still

motivating them to get their work done.

Gathering data from a survey I sent out, I found that 84.2% of students said that grades

have affected their mental health. I also asked if changing the grade scale would help students

with their stress levels, etc. Some of the responses I got was, “Yes...students would be a lot less

stressed”, “Yes! It would give teenagers a chance to be teenagers” and finally, “I feel like this
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would definitely help lower the stress of school.” Clearly a lot of students are stressed about

school and their grades.

However, I did find out that a lot of the leeway students are getting from teachers, this is

resulting in their motivation dropping. In an interview I did with student Ben Huber, he said, “the

leeway I have been given by my teachers has made my motivation go down a ton to accomplish

my work...and it's only going to get worse as things get back to normal.” When we start going

back to normal, it is going to be a lot harder for students to adapt because they have had less

expected of them. So I propose, teachers slowly take away that slack they have given on

assignments. Not only do I think students would thrive in that environment, but I think it would

be the perfect mix of learning and challenging themselves. The stress would be lowered for

students. Expert Abigail Groncki agrees with this too. Abigail is an expert because she used to go

to a school with this proposed grade scale. She said, “I definitely was a lot less stressed with the

lower grade scale then I am now”(Groncki). Between going back to normal with taking away the

leeway from students, and lowering the grade scale, the students will be challenged because they

have deadlines for assignments, but they also have a lower grade system so they can express

themselves and do better. They won't be as stressed.

As you can see, I think changing the grading scale and slowly getting rid of the leeway

from teachers would be super beneficial for our Brighton high community. Students have a lot of

stress on their shoulders already, school is one thing that should not be added to that mix. Plus, it

is in your power to change it! According to the Utah state board of education, they state, “USBE

recognizes that grade calculations and GPA are a local policy issue” (USBE). Students need to be

challenged, but with the way the grading system is now, it's more overwhelming than anything.

Changing this system would be super beneficial!

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Works cited

Huber, Abby. Survey of grades in the pandemic. Cottonwood Heights, UT: Brighton High

school 18 April 2021. Unpublished

Abigail Groncki, Ben Huber Personal Interview, 26 April 2021

“Utah State Board of Education Guidance for 2019–2020 School Year Due to

COVID-19.” N/a, 2020,

civicclerk.blob.core.windows.net/stream/USBE/b66902ac11.pdf?sv=2015-12-11

&sr=b&sig=v81jexjhU539P%2BKp8a6eZ4NYc0M250sYpfXiu0eDZJo%3D&st=

2021-05-06T14%3A43%3A48Z&se=2022-05-06T14%3A48%3A48Z&sp=r&rsc

c=no-cache&rsct=application%2Fpdf.