Last spring, the RISD Board of Trustees adopted changes regarding the timeline of the GPA calculations for graduation of the 2023-2024 school year.
“The GPAs calculated at the end of the first semester will be used for Senior Awards and Honors for graduation ceremony purposes,” said the RISD Board of Trustees in an email pushed out to the senior class of students and parents of 2024.
After removing ranks in 2018, the RISD board realize that their GPA policy was unfair towards some students but had no choice but to wait until they graduated to amend the policy.
“Once they graduated out, it was time for us to come back and look at that original policy,” Elizabeth Swaner said. “It gets confusing for people when they’re looking at it… so we cleaned up everything in the policy to where it was up to date.”
One of the biggest reason for this change was due to students taking Dual Credit classes that are on the semester grading system rather than quarterly grading system RISD is on.
“It was inequitable,” Swaner said ” It was not fair for a student taking a Duel Credit class compared to someone taking an AP or OnRamp class because the AP/ OnRamp student would have an extra grade from third quarter to boost their GPA that the Dual Credit student wouldn’t have.”
From finalizing GPA’s at the end of the third quarter for the past 5 years, senior principal,Tara McLennan said that this will make it easier on her to help the seniors out.
“Typically April and May and even March is a very busy time for seniors just to get everything ready for them,” McLennan said. “So having all of that information as soon as they get back from winter break just allows for me to check things off my list as far as deadlines.”
Some students had similar opinions towards this change as they want to solidify their position as soon as possible.
“I am glad that they changed it because even though we don’t have an extra grade to boost our GPA, I don’t have to worry about anyone affecting my rank next semester,” Ludan Alsoudai said. “I am contemplating on dropping my AP Psychology class because besides as a GPA booster it doesn’t really matter.”
Other students, however, are worried about the effect it will have on grades.
“I feel like this might have a negative effect because seniorities is already a big thing,” Celia Schafer said. “This might mean that seniors will start to kind of being unconcerned about their grades earlier.”
With this change occurring for the first time, Mclennan said that only time will tell with how the policy will actually work out in regards to how seniors will be affected.
“Seniors have got to understand that even though the balance fell on top ten are going to be determined by the end of the fall semester, they have to keep working and not completely take off the spring semester.” Swaner said.
