Dear Parents of SVMS,

The end of the school year is upon us and I want to thank you for everything you have done to support your children through this difficult time of on-line learning.  I know that there will be questions regarding what grading will look like for 4th quarter.  I will try my best to try to explain it.  When we were first hit with the message that the remainder of the year would be on-line, we were put in a place to make decisions in a hurry.  Of course, knowing what we know now, some things were done right, some things we learned from and will change if we have to go through this again.  

The district took into account that grading would be one of the hardest adjustments to make. We knew that the work, instruction and support would not look the same as it does with in-school learning.  We decided to start the 4th quarter grade at the student's last grade earned (3rd Quarter) and, depending on the amount and quality of work done, either raise the grade by one letter grade, leave the grade the same, or drop the grade by one letter grade if no work was done.  In most cases this was a fair way to honor the work that was done during this time.  Unfortunately, there were students who did exceptional work and deserved to raise their grade more than one letter grade, but we have to stick with the decision made from the beginning.   I hope you understand that this was not a perfect system and we learned a lot since spring break.  We worked hard to get things in place as fast as we could and hope you understand that we did what we thought would be the best and fairest for our students.  

In addition, no second semester grade will be assigned as there was no way to balance the two quarters fairly.