School’s out for summer? Early grade announcement is an education fail.

Oh boy.

The state Board of Education — and the Department of Public Instruction — sure have impeccable timing, don’t they?

We can’t think of a better message to send our high school students — most of whom have more than a month of “school” remaining before summer break — than the one delivered by the bureaucrats Thursday. 

Most of you probably expected to hear it. We did, too. But indulge us while we review.

State education officials have decided that no student can fail a Spring 2020 course. None. Zilch. Not even the kid who never came to class or the one who has not turned in a single assignment since Christmas break ended.

Instead, they can simply withdraw. Because, you know, COVID-19.

Students who were passing their classes as of March 13 are, in essence, good to go. They can either take the numeric grade they had when schools were closed by Gov. Roy Cooper, or they can keep what amounts to a “Pass” on their transcript without grade points attached.

Now, those of you with children who work their tails off are probably, to some extent, happy about this development. You want your student to be rewarded for his or her hard work and believe they have every right to keep their straight A’s.

And, in theory, we agree with you. It’s not the students’ fault that the school year was disrupted — that there is no real equitable way to assign grades post-March 13 in a remote setting when thousands of students in North Carolina don’t even have access to the Internet.

But here’s the problem with the timing of this announcement.

What incentive do those students — or any students, for that matter — have now to continue to work from home? 

Sure, there is language in the policy that talks about being able to improve one’s grade through remote learning, but previous guidance from DPI mandates that districts not allow grading during the shutdown unless they can prove, unequivocally, that every child had access to the work.

And here in Wayne County, we already know that some students still don’t have Internet access.

So, no. Unless the student is a senior who is failing a class, the incentive is gone. History.

And let’s face it. There are skills learned in, say, Math I or English I, that they will need to know in the fall when they move on to Math II or English II.

Now apply that to a foreign language course.

Let’s assume for a minute — and only for a minute — that the majority of Wayne County students have actually been completing their assignments for the last six weeks. And let’s pretend that every WCPS teacher was tech-savvy enough to assign standards-based work that was easy for their students to comprehend without a professional walking them through the concepts in a face-to-face setting.

Even if both of those assumptions were true — news flash: based on feedback we have received from parents and teachers, they are not — what good could possibly come out of telling these students they are now, basically, done?

The way we see it, DPI and the state BOE just cost these kids six weeks of education. And even if the instruction wasn’t as rigorous as it would have been inside classrooms, at least these students would have been learning something. 

Oh, and DPI also just put an incredible burden on teachers who return to schools next fall. (We would like to think that there will actually be school in the fall, but at this rate, it’s anyone’s guess.)

Think about it. There will almost certainly have to be a massive remediation window for these educators to ensure students are up to speed before they tackle new content.

And yes. Schools will still be judged on how those students perform on state tests.

And now, based on this policy, they will be required to “document individual student strengths and needs from both an academic and social/emotional perspective to ensure an effective transition from the spring 2020 remote learning process to the 2020-21 academic year.”

Really? How exactly does an educator who likely hasn’t heard back from the majority of his or her students assess “student strengths” from a “social/emotional perspective”?

It seems really clear that none of these decision-makers have ever spent time in a classroom. And if they have, they have incredibly short memories.

But hey. No worries. The teachers have got this, right?

We repeat. Oh. Boy.

Do the officials in Raleigh not get that they are setting our schools up for failure here?

Do they not understand that young people today are smart enough to read between the lines? 

Did they not foresee an issue with making this announcement more than a month before the end of the school year?

Not such a good plan — you know, if you want to try to salvage any kind of educational progress this year.

But it gets better.

This whole policy, including the grading decisions — students get the choice to either keep their March 13 grade, to withdraw from the class without it being counted as a “fail” or to take a “pass” — was made, according to the state, to ensure they were being “fair.”

DPI even referred to it as a “no harm approach.”

Really?

Fair?

What about this is fair?

What about letting a student slide who never showed up for class — or turned in one assignment and had ZERO pathways to a passing grade — while his or her classmates worked hard to pass a tough class is fair?

What about allowing the students who have completed their work over the last six weeks to share the same result as classmates who have done nothing is fair?

No harm?

What about telling high school students who thrive on structure that they are, essentially, done is harmless?

What about rewarding those students who simply decided to write off the last six weeks by allowing them to pass — or those who were failing to withdraw — is right?

In reality, it sends a terrible message. Terrible.

Now, is it important to ensure those students without access to the Internet are not penalized? Yes. 

Is it imperative that we take the students’ home lives into account and acknowledge that remote learning just isn’t viable inside certain households? Absolutely.

But again, if we’re being honest, there are plenty of young men and women in this county who saw this coming and used it as an excuse to do nothing. If they were passing, they assumed they would get the same treatment as the senior class.

And all of this comes while county teachers and administrators are working hard to come up with new ways to engage students, all while struggling to implement a digital learning system on the fly. 

Why not just call it what it is — an end to the 2019-20 school year.

Perhaps the teachers can use the remaining weeks to figure out how they are going to overcome this learning deficit/challenge this fall and to begin creating the materials and the plans they need to serve their students and to make sure they will be successful.

School districts and administrators can also get serious about putting a backup digital learning network in place in the event North Carolina’s stay at home order is extended.

And then, maybe we can give our teachers and school personnel a little bonus — an early end to their required school time.

We can consider it a thank you to a group of dedicated educators who work so hard all year, every year.

It would be an unprecedented acknowledgment in a year that has been anything but ordinary.