24 JANUARY 28, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Public school students with NX letter grade have until
this month to make up work
BY ALEJANDRA O'CONNELL-DOMENECH
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
Out of the city’s 1.1 million public
school students, over 71,000 received
a “course in progress” as
a fi nal grade for a class they began last
year, Department of Education offi cials
revealed last week.
Due to the multiple interruptions to
the school year caused by the coronavirus
pandemic, DOE offi cials relaxed
public school grading policy and
instructed teachers to issue “course in
progress” grades instead of failing letter
grades to students unable to complete
coursework.
Now, those students have until the
end of this month to complete their outstanding
work before a permanent letter
grade is placed on their transcripts.
Over 20,100 of those students with a
“course in progress”–abbreviated as NX
on school transcripts–are special needs
students with Individualized Education
Programs (IEPs) and over 13,800 are
English language learners.
The upcoming deadline worries
lawmakers, like City Council Education
Committee Chair Mark Treyger,
since thousands of students could be
given a “damaging permanent grade”
potentially deepening the academic
divide in the city already worsened by
the pandemic.
“These kids need support, they need
internet devices, they need instruction,
they need teachers, they need connections,
they don’t need to be given a damaging
permanent grade particularly for
something that is no fault of their own,”
said Councilmember Treyger.
There were two groups of students
that are at particularly high risk of falling
through the cracks; those living in
shelters and the perpetually absent.
Many of the city’s 114,000 public school
students living in city shelters still lack
proper access to WiFi which is essential
for connecting to remote classes.
Last October, Mayor de Blasio promised
to install WiFi in all city shelters in
response to reports revealing students
in city shelters still struggled to turn in
homework and log on to classes seven
months into the pandemic. But the mayor
warned that the task would probably not
be complete until the summer of 2021.
In addition, the DOE has been unable
to track down 2,600 students who have
not logged on or shown up to class since
the pandemic forced schools to close in
March of last year, Deputy Chancellor
Photo via Getty Images
Donald Conyers told City Councilmembers
during an oversight hearing on
learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic
on Wednesday. Conyers could not
provide a demographic breakdown of
these missing students.
DOE offi cials also revealed that public
school teachers could be responsible for
up to 50 blended learning students on remote
days. Class sizes that large, Treyger
argued, makes it impossible for school
staff to account for the whereabouts
of every student and fully meet the
academic needs.
Multiple studies have found that
students are sliding backward in terms
of learning due to the pandemic. One
study released in December from McKinsey
& Co, claims that the shift to remote
learning last spring resulted in students
of color being set back three to fi ve
months in math while white students
lost one to three months.
“The purpose of this hearing is to take
stock of the learning impact on our kids
but I am fi nding it a challenge here to
believe that we have actually taken that
stock,” said Treyger. “I don’t think we
have found the depths of how much loss
our kids have actually experienced yet.”
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