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Credit: (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
File photo: In-person learning at a high school
Until recently, Fs were piling up at Newark’s Central High School.
On Jan. 10, the school of roughly 770 students recorded nearly 2,000 failing grades, according to staff emails reviewed by Chalkbeat. That day, a district administrator sent Central’s principal a list of all the students with Fs or missing grades, calling it “an action item that requires immediate attention.”
Two days later, the principal, Dr. Sharnee Brown, issued a schoolwide directive: Get rid of the Fs.
“During the pandemic, no student will have missing grades or Fs,” read a slide in a presentation shared with teachers on Jan. 12. Instead, every student was expected to complete the second marking period, which ended Thursday, with a C average or better, the slide said. It called the order a “NO F & Missing Grade MANDATE.”