Students question retake, ‘no zero’ policies

Tom Milstead
Posted 2/19/20

One of the most common criticisms of the education system in the United States is that it’s gotten too easy for students to not do their part in their education,

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Students question retake, ‘no zero’ policies

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TORRINGTON – One of the most common criticisms of the education system in the United States is that it’s gotten too easy for students to not do their part in their education, and after input from local students, the Goshen County School District Board of Trustees is going to examine the reality behind some of its own policies. 

The board added a student representative from each local high school to its ranks to gather student feedback, and in their first assignment, the trio surveyed their peers at each respective school about the district’s common assessment retake policy. Superintendent Ryan Kramer explained the policy allows students to retake common assessments, which are the district’s standard of measuring student comprehension of a subject, until the student achieves a satisfactory score. 

“That allows a student, after they’ve taken a common assessment and received a score that they don’t feel is their highest achievement possible, it gives them an option to retake it,” Kramer said. 

“There are various views on that and how we implement that. I think there are ways that can have a little more onus on the student, and a little more requirement. From a parent perspective, I really like it because it allows me to hold my child a little more accountable when I see a score they might be OK with, but as a parent I want them to do better.”

The student representatives found that to be the mindset in their own surveys, but also reported a lot of their peers did not feel the policy was applicable to college or adult life. Sera Glass, representing Torrington High School, said her peers who are taking online college courses from Eastern Wyoming College, which are offered by the district, have expressed “shock” at the finality of college test scores. 

“These are a few of the comments I got,” Glass said. “‘It’s unrealistic in college and real life, but it’s nice if you don’t do as well as you want on a test.’ 

“Students who now take online college classes emphasize the shock of going into a class and not having retakes be a part of it. I heard it makes a bad habit for college, with students being able to retake everything. It’s good for your grades and bad for a study habit.”

Lingle-Fort Laramie High School representative Callie Fritzler and Southeast High School representative Clara Petersen found similar results amongst their classmates. Petersen said she interviewed students from seventh grade to seniors. While some of them liked the option to achieve a better result on an assessment, some students expressed the notion that they aren’t held accountable for their actions. 

“It gives them a second chance if the first doesn’t go as well,” Petersen said. “I also had opinions that some students just rely on the retake. 

“Students aren’t held accountable. I feel like you have people who choose to slack off who don’t do as well on the first try, you aren’t held accountable. Therefore, your college preparedness, or when you go on in life, you lack. You only have one chance in college to do your tests. I know, because I’m taking some online courses through EWC, and I only have one chance to take a quiz or a test.”

Kramer said the students’ comments prompted him to do some research in the future about the success of Goshen County students in their first year of college. 

“One of the data points I wrote down in my notebook to look up is to see if when we were in a traditional model with no retakes and we didn’t have the components or the ‘no zero’ policy, how many students were failing in their freshman year of college,” he said. “My guess is that it’s probably pretty similar. 

“Traditionally, a large percentage of freshman fail courses their freshmen year because they’re not prepared. I don’t necessarily believe that is related to retakes or zeroes. I think it’s about preparing the student, not necessarily about the policy. It’s going to take a hard look at our data.”

Kramer said the policy allows for more motivated students to pursue higher marks, but it also opens the door for some students to take advantage of the policy. 

“It’s a little bit of both,” he said. “I really like it for the high-achieving students because for those kids who want to have 100 percent or have an A every single time, it gives them the option to retake that. For me, it’s about a philosophical piece of learning. What is learning? Learning is about not just at one point in time. Not everybody learns the same way or in the same timeframe. It’s just an opportunity. If it takes me some extra time to get it, I can still do it.”

During the open comment portion of last week’s meeting, Southeast seniors Ashley Tosh and Destiny Beaman voiced similar concerns over the ‘no zero’ policy, which mandates that students are not allowed to have zeroes in the gradebook. 

“We would like to address an issue that many students and faculty have in our school system,” Beaman told the board. “We have many students who are riding on the ‘no zero’ policy, and are passing classes without giving the effort like the rest of the student body. The ‘no zero’ policy is giving them the buffer to pass classes with little to no effort while others are giving the time and the effort in class to learn the material.”

“My concern is that the ‘no zero’ policy is teaching students to be lazy and to put less effort into their schoolwork,” Tosh said. “It’s disrespectful to hardworking students who study and get the material the first time, and it’s not making us career- or college-ready.” 

Kramer said the ‘no zero’ initiative is more of a vision than a policy, but like the assessment retake policy, it allows students more opportunities to be successful. 

“A teacher can’t say ‘you have a zero, you’re done,’” Kramer said. “What I have actually found, which is a little different view than what the girls are taking in – they’re viewing that students who get a zero by not allowing them to take it are off the hook. Actually, what I’ve found with a lot of our students, is that they’re willing to take a zero. ‘Fine, I’ll take it. Get off my back and don’t bother me.’ 

“These girls, and other students who are high achievers, I can see their perspective. They would never allow themselves to have a zero and the way they view it from their perspective is very interesting. What our teachers have found is that we need to have that responsibility on both parties, the student and the teacher. The teachers need to be working with the students and saying, ‘I’m not going to let you fail.’ They’re not going to allow you to fail. That’s one of those philosophy pieces and not really a policy piece.”

Kramer did express concern in how the policies, especially the retake policy, are being implemented in classrooms. Glass said that different teachers have different classroom policies concerning the retakes and only allow students who score below a certain threshold to try the assessment again. 

“Different teachers have different retakes processes, which can be confusing,” she said. “I also heard that infinite retakes are frustrating for students who perform well first time. Some teachers allow anyone to retake, but some teachers only allow certain students to retake, so a student with a 90 on the first try might not be able to retake it.”

That’s something that will be examined, Kramer said. 

“I was very concerned with what I heard regarding the various implementations of it,” he said. “We had one teacher saying ‘you can retake this’ to another teacher saying ‘no, you can’t when you have a 90.’ Those types of things need to be addressed and that’s not necessarily a policy issue, but a reliance and understanding from the teacher’s perspective.”

Board Chairwoman Katherine Patrick and board member Zach Miller told the student representatives, as well as Tosh and Beaman, that they would take their comments under advisement. 

“I appreciate the time and effort that you’ve taken to prepare this presentation, and the fact that you are professionally dressed and appearing to take this rather seriously, as we are prepared to do also,” Patrick told Tosh and Beaman. 

“I would like to make sure we take the feedback from our student representatives and those who came to speak to us today on a similar topic, and use it to inform policy moving forward,” Miller said. “We don’t want to just have information that dies when it is presented. We need to take it to inform and act and potentially change policy.”