More than 28,500 middle and high school students in Duval County public schools last year participated in the district’s grade recovery program to improve a grade of D or F in a class.
That means 38 percent of the secondary students in the district took part in the program, which allows students to raise their nine-week report card grades. Of the 28,536 students who participated, less than half improved their grades through the program.
The courses eligible for grade recovery are reading, math, science and social studies. Grade recovery primarily relies on a computer program and sometimes additional assignments.
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Students can earn their new grade in as little as three days or as long as several weeks, depending on how long it takes a student to finish the computer-based assignments and take a final test.
The highest grade a student can earn in the program is a C.
The number of middle and high school students who participated in grade recovery has increased by more than 11,600 students since the 2008-09 school year. And that’s exactly what district officials want.
“It helps every stakeholder in the food chain of education be successful,” said Terri Stahlman, the school system’s chief of instructional technology and special services. “Because when students are successful at each formative step of the way, they have a better chance of reaching promotion and a high school diploma, and thus opportunity outside the K-12 space.”
District officials said the emphasis on grade recovery allows students to stay on track for graduation and helps prevent struggling students from getting frustrated and dropping out.
“We want our students to be successful, but we also want them being successful having mastered the curriculum,” said Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals. “Some students need more time in order to acquire the same knowledge and skills.”
Pratt-Dannals said he wants the number of students who need to recover grades to drop, but he wants all students who have struggled to participate in the program.
“They’re earning it. These aren’t give-me grades by any means,” he said.
Devaluing teachers?
But some teachers think the program is less rigorous than classroom work and devalues teachers. They also say students see the safety net as an incentive to goof-off and not take class work seriously.
“I had a student last year just write their name on the test and turn it back to me and say ‘OK, just give me grade recovery now,’ ” said Christopher Harvey, who taught science at Ed White High School last year and was a former teacher of the year at the school. “They perceived it to be a shortcut to continue to be a jerk in class or not show up to class.”
Of all the district’s secondary students, 18 percent, or 13,631, improved their grades to a D or C through the program last year.
Many of the students participating in grade recovery use the computer program Compass Odyssey to review material, take practice problems, quizzes and finally an exam.
During a recent school day at Landon College Preparatory and Leadership Development School, grade recovery teacher Kristie Putnal walked from student to student, answering questions and talking through problems. About six students were in the class.
Landon Principal Kelly Coker-Daniel credits Putnal and the grade recovery system for the school’s zero percent retention rate.
“It’s a tool that I wish I would have had the whole time,” Coker-Daniel said. “Some children need a second opportunity to show mastery and our second opportunity has always been summer school. When a child gets an F in the first nine weeks, why would we wait until summer school to help them remediate their skills?”
Arvell Norman, an eighth grader at Landon, failed multiple courses last year but through grade recovery was able to gain confidence, catch up and be promoted to the next grade.
“Seventh grade probably could have been the worst year for me, but luckily to grade recovery, it helped me with my work,” he said. “Now I’m in the eighth grade and I only had one class to recover. So grade recovery has been the best place to help pull up my grade.”
Putnal and Coker-Daniel said Norman is a success story.
“When they see that they can do the work, they’re so proud,” Putnal said. “He has convinced himself through hard work that he can accomplish his goals.”
Putnal is also the school’s teacher of the year.
“That’s a statement that the teachers believe she is doing this work and holding the children accountable and making sure the mastery occurs,” Coker-Daniel said.
‘Nothing to it’
Not every school has a grade recovery teacher, and the district leaves it to each teacher’s discretion to determine which students should go through grade recovery.
Lois Floyd retired last year after teaching for 32 years. Floyd, who was an English teacher at Mandarin High School last year, said she had one student who said grade recovery was easier than her class.
“He said, ‘There’s nothing to it, made up the whole nine-weeks worth of work in about three days,’ ” she said. “And then I was supposed to raise his grade from an F.”
Stahlman points to last year’s rate at which students earned C grades through the program as an example of grade recovery and Compass Odyssey’s rigor.
“There are some children out there that may take advantage of the teacher and not do what they are asked to do and then choose to do learning recovery, but the best that student’s going to get is a C,” she said.
‘Goal of graduation’
Victor Sciullo, a chemistry teacher at Paxon School for Advanced Studies, said grade recovery was a form of social promotion and isn’t preparing students for the real world.
“How is that fair to the kid that did everything they were supposed to do to earn that C the first time through, at a higher standard?” Sciullo said. “There is absolutely no incentive to work hard because students know they have an infinite well of second chances.”
But district officials want the second chance that grade recovery provides to reach even more students.
“We’re building success,” Stahlman said, “to get to the goal of graduation.”
topher.sanders@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4169
