Chromebook pilot to be expanded to cover all middle school students
By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times
A sample GPA distribution — not one from an actual class — provided by the Unionville-Chadds Ford School district. This format of information is slated to replace reporting which decile — which slice of 10% — a Unionville High School student fall into in reporting to colleges and universities.
PENNSBURY — The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District Board of Education voted Monday to stop providing Unionville High School students’ decile rank — which tenth of the class their grad point averages were in — on transcripts for college applications.
The board voted 7-2 — Robert Sage and Michael Rock voted no — to end the reporting and use an administrative guideline that would offer GPA ranges to put an individual’s grades in context for colleges and universities.
Additionally, the board agreed to discuss also including the top GPA in the class on the school profile, a topic that will be taken up at next month’s work session. The changes are effective for the class of 2017. Rankings had typically been taken at the end of a student’s junior year.
While the vote on decile reporting capped a nearly year-long process, with a wide range of public comment, both pro and con, the final vote came fairly swiftly and minimal public comments prior to the vote.
Rock voted no citing the fact that he felt the GPA distribution plan essentially amounted to providing decile information, while Sage — who attended via phone conference — opposed dropping the decile reporting, noting that high achieving students should be rewarded for their accomplishments.
Students in the top 5% of their class will be recognized at graduation as Principal Scholars, while all graduating students with a GPA of 4.0 will be recognized in the commencement program.
In other news, the board voted unanimously to expand the pilot test of Chromebooks at Patton Middle School to include all students, starting with the 2016-17 school year. The devices are laptop style computers with very little local storage that depend on Internet access and a suite of Google applications to run.
After debating various pricing models over the last few weeks, the board opted to give parents three choices:
• Option 1: A student/parent may purchase a Chromebook at cost from the district (approximately $266) and would own the device outright. The cost will include insurance on the device. This option replaces one that would have seen a $75 yearly fee, that officials said ultimately was too logistically difficult to implement.
• Option 2: The student will be issued a district-owned Chromebook and they will be allowed to take the device home during the school year. Students/parents will pay $20.00 a year for insurance to cover potential loss or damage. The unit would be turned in at the end of the school year.
• Option 3: The student will be issued a district-owned Chromebook and they will be allowed to take the device home during the school year. No insurance charge will be levied but students and/or their parents would be responsible for any loss or damage of the device. The unit would be turned in at the end of the school year.
Also: the board gave final approval on bids for renovation and repair projects scheduled for this summer at Patton Middle School. The auditorium is slated for renovations and roofing work will be done.
Lastly, board member John Murphy offered congratulations the Unionville High School girls’ hockey team which won the Flyers’ Cup earlier this month.
