BENTONVILLE -- A committee of administrators studied and chose not to recommend any changes to the method of determining credits for high school students transferring into the School District, despite one student's claim the method is unfair.
Jessica Dias-Jayasinghe, a Bentonville High School junior, had been ranked No. 1 in her class of nearly 800 students, but was displaced by a student who transferred into the district, according to Debby Nye, an attorney and friend of the girl's family.
By the numbers
Click the image below to see the percentages of colleges attributing different levels of importance to factors in admission decisions for first-time freshmen, according to a 2014 survey by the National Association of College Admissions Counseling. About 230 institutions responded.
The way a transferring student's credits are determined depends on what kind of educational environment -- public school, private school or home schooling -- they're coming from.
When a home-schooled student transfers into a district high school, for example, a committee evaluates that student's past course work and decides whether to award credits based on whether the courses align with Bentonville's offerings and whether there is evidence of subject mastery in those courses.
The committee then may either deny credit, grant credit contingent on additional testing or information, or award credit as either a "pass" or "credit" on the student's transcript, in which case no letter or numerical grade is assigned.
As a result, a student transferring into a high school as a junior could affect the class ranking after just one semester, surpassing students who have attended the school all along, Nye said.
"Which on its face is an inequity," Nye told the School Board at its meeting Feb. 21. "And in Jessica's case it has greatly caused harm to her."
That's because class rank is based on grade-point average, which affects how colleges and universities view applicants, she said.
Dias-Jayasinghe, in her own remarks to the board, said she's attended Bentonville schools since kindergarten and has worked hard by taking the most advanced classes possible.
She also volunteers and has tutored students at Northwest Arkansas Community College in science and math. In April 2016, as a sophomore taking classes concurrently at the college, she was named the college's Golden Eagle student of the month.
Despite her accomplishments, she said she's been penalized by the district's policy on computing grade-point averages.
"I think it's basically a slap to my face," Dias-Jayasinghe told the board. "It's as if the hard work I have achieved every day doesn't matter."
Committee work
The district assembled a Credit Review Committee made up of high school principals, assistant principals, registrars and central office administrators. It met three times in February to review policies and procedures.
"Significant time" was spent outside meetings conducting research, according to Tanya Sharp, the district's director of student services.
The committee researched peer districts to examine how they handle transfer credits of students coming from another public school, a private school or home schooling.
"We have some districts in our area that transfer credits in similarly," Sharp said. "We have some that do a pass-fail. Some don't do a class rank, they do a percentage of class rank. They don't have valedictorian or salutatorian designations. We have some that do continue that as well. So there were some similarities and some differences."
In order for a student to qualify for valedictorian or salutatorian at a Bentonville high school, that student must have been enrolled in the district for four consecutive semesters, including the final semester before graduation.
The committee also surveyed 36 colleges and universities on their admission practices, including how they compare applicants' grade-point averages from school to school and how much importance they put on class rank.
"I think we had two colleges that said, 'Yes, we very much do use class rank, but a student is still considered even if they're coming from a school that does not have a class rank'," Sharp said.
A 2014 survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling found only 14 percent of about 230 colleges and universities attributed "considerable importance" to class rank, down from 23 percent in a 2006 survey.
The 2014 survey showed grades in college-prep courses were of considerable importance to 79 percent of respondents. Several other things -- including overall grades, strength of curriculum and scores on college-admission tests -- also were deemed more important than class rank.
"So with all of this information, our committee determined there really aren't any changes we need to make at this time in our current procedures and policies," Sharp said.
The only policy change the committee recommended concerned former home-schooled students. If they can show proof they took a certified Advanced Placement course, they should get credit for that, Sharp said.
The committee will be a standing one that will continue to review what college admissions officials are requiring, Sharp said.
Nye said she and the Dias-Jayasinghe family were disappointed with the result of the committee's work.
"The exercise appeared to us to be an attempt to justify the policy and not examine the actual impact of the policy upon the students," Nye said. "The committee simply failed to demonstrate any consideration given for the fact that the practice causes a disadvantage to the student who has spent their academic life in the district."
Other districts
The Fayetteville School District's system for determining credit for transferring students is similar to Bentonville's.
"We look at the transcript and try to match up the courses they have on the transcript to what we offer here," said Julie Domer, registrar at Fayetteville High School. "If they're from this country and we know the grading scale, we put the grade they received on their transcript."
Where it gets tricky is if the student is from another country. Typically that student's past grades are converted into either passes or fails and don't factor into a grade-point average, Domer said.
"Sometimes it gets tricky. In lots of cases they'll come in with just 'math' on their transcript, so then we have to do a placement test for them," she said.
The system has worked out "rather well," she said.
"We really try to find out and match the courses best we can. And sometimes that means calling the other school to get a course description. And if the course description matches what's in our framework, we count that. We do everything we can to help the students and make sure they're not penalized for having to move," Domer said.
Nearly 200 students have transferred into the high school since the beginning of this school year, she said.
The Rogers School District's policy also is similar.
"Students transferring from home schools or schools which are not accredited by a regional or state accrediting agency shall be evaluated by school staff to determine the student's proper placement," the district's policy states.
The school principal, on a course-by-course basis, may deny credit, grant credit, or grant credit contingent on the student passing a subsequent course, making a satisfactory score on a test or providing additional information.
"It's not an exact science. I wish it was," said Charles Lee, assistant superintendent for secondary curriculum and instruction.
Travis Riggs, president of the Bentonville School Board, said there has to be a verifiable, accredited score from the student's previous school in order for it to count.
"If there's not, those classes are just eliminated, and their GPA starts from the day they come in and start taking courses here," Riggs said. "And I would assume if someone comes in as a sophomore, and they're scoring really really really well, they probably would have scored really really really well if they'd been here the whole time."
NW News on 03/13/2017