Student leader works to change grading policies

PALMER — Emerson Moser, a senior at Mat-Su Career Tech High School, brought attention to an issue that could potentially negatively affect the grade point averages of students. Moser’s resolution was the spotlight for this month’s Student Advisory Meeting, which passed with minimal opposition.

Moser spent about six months researching and crafting a comprehensive solution to mend what he sees as a broken GPA structure. Moser’s resolution aims to change the current GPA policy the Mat-Su Borough School District uses, which essentially punishes students who have a GPA higher than a 4.0 if they take classes outside the normally scheduled school day, according to Moser.

Most classes offered in high school are graded based on a 4.0 scale, meaning that if a student earns an A grade, they would earn four points for that class, and if the student earns A grades in all of their classes, their GPA for that grading period would be a 4.0.

However, advanced placement courses by the College Board are weighted on a 5.0 scale, which could make a student’s GPA higher than a 4.0. In the MSBSD, a standard high school schedule includes seven classes for a student. That is where Moser focused most of his attention.

Moser experienced a drop in his GPA when he earned an A from taking marching band at Colony High School. Moser’s GPA is above a 4.0, yet taking this extra class that is weighted on the normal scale lowered his GPA even though he earned the highest letter grade possible. Moser’s resolution intends to fix the current system that some argue punishes students for succeeding in extra courses.

“Students want this change, the Mat-Su Borough wants this change, and the Mat-Su School Board is who we’re all counting on to take the next steps for the well-being of every high school student that they affect,” Moser said.

Moser proposed a solution to this problem in his resolution. He wants to create a new category of classes taken outside of the standard seven-period schedule called Extra Period Classes. A student, under this new definition, could choose whether to change their grade to a pass/fail or keep their earned grade. Moser included the option of pass/fail because it does not affect GPA, and therefore EPCs would not negatively affect a student with a GPA greater than a 4.0.

Class rank based on GPA has slowly faded out of favor for many universities across the country, according to the 2018 State of College Admission report issued by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. It found that, “only 1 in 3 admissions counselors identified class rank as even moderately important in the admissions process.” Though correcting GPA policies could change who truly deserves the valedictorian title, Moser believes that students are discouraged to challenge themselves by taking courses outside of their schedule for it would be detrimental to a GPA higher than a 4.0 and that the current system misrepresents over-achieving students’ academic successes.

Prior to presenting his resolution to SAB and after gaining support from his school’s student government, the Alaska Association of Student Governments delegation, a body of student representatives from across the state, approved his resolution. Moser plans to use the statewide student support to further persuade the school board to act.

Moser’s six months of preparation did not please everyone. At the October SAB meeting this year, the student representatives from Burchell High School voted against the resolution.

“I think that you should get the same GPA no matter how many classes you’re taking,” Christopher Bella, a student at Burchell High School, said.

Bella’s reasoning was that a student could boost their GPA higher than what should be considered fair by only taking a few AP classes and a couple of electives. Though the standard school schedule in the MSBSD is seven periods, once students reach the end of their high school careers, they can choose to take the required amount of classes to earn the remaining amount of credits needed to graduate, which could result in a student with shorter than standard schedule. Though the resolution focused on students who choose to take extra classes, the principles of the resolution inherently make it so that students could alter their GPA based on class sizes, whether to accurately represent their academic achievements or to gain an edge in the class-rank race. Bella’s voted against the resolution because it contradicted his philosophy that students should earn whatever GPA they get from however many classes they take.

Anthony Jones is a senior at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School and a Frontiersman intern for the 2019-2020 school year.