Should Oxford Start Weighting Grades?
Published: December 24th, 2010
By: Melissa Stagnaro

OXFORD – The task force created to evaluate Oxford’s grade weighting policy has failed to reach a consensus on the matter.

On Monday, Oxford High School Principal Janet Laytham updated the district’s board of education on the activities of the ad-hoc committee, which was formed at the board’s request after district parent and math teacher Pat Moore raised concerns about the ambiguity of the school’s current policy.

Laytham said the group, which consisted of 13 staff and faculty members, met twice, and had a great deal of discussion on the topic. In the end, however, they did not have a recommendation for the board.

“Right now our policy is that all courses are unweighted,” Laytham told the board. However, there is a certain degree of weighting in determining class ranking as those receiving Regents diplomas with advanced distinction are placed before regular Regents diploma candidates.

The administrator said the first phase of the process was to see how other districts within DCMO BOCES region handle grade weighting.

“This is something the local district decides,” said Laytham, explaining that some districts choose to weight grades while others do not. Norwich, Bainbridge-Guilford, Hancock, Otselic Valley, Sidney, Unatego and Walton are among the schools which do weight, she said. But even each of these schools differ in their determination of which courses are weighted, as well as the percentage weights assigned to them. “It varies widely from district to district.”

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