The students of North Allegheny have been deeply affected by the change in grading system for the 2020-2021 school year. It is detrimental to students as the weight on the summative assessments negatively impacts their academic performance and places a bias on test performance rather than mastery of the content. This change will bring major issues that students are facing right now to the table. The impact of this change is crucial as students face large amounts of stress and anxiety as grades steadily decrease. Moreover, more students will go to drastic lengths to cheat on summative assessments because of the inherent impartiality and weight placed on them. Both the school and students can be benefited by this as better performance, academic integrity, and retainment of course context yields an overall better result for the district as a whole. Furthermore, worrying about the health and safety of our families is our main priority during these unprecedented times. Adding this with the weight difference of formative and summative assessments adds unnecessary stress to student lives. Please sign the petition for a change.

By: Gaurav Nayak, Kerem Yasar, Darsh Mahadevia, Hamza Bokhari, Vishaal Komaragiri, and Aditya Mallepalli.