MANCHESTER, NH – Will the “no grade” or “NG” grade return to Manchester’s public schools? Following Tuesday’s Manchester Board of School Committee (BOSC) Teaching and Learning Committee’s discussion on the topic, an answer could be coming in the next few months.
During Monday’s full BOSC meeting, the issue was mentioned during discussion on modifying the district’s attendance policy, as the NG grade intersected policies and procedures related to both attendance and grading. The NG grade had given students an automatic 64.99% grade if they had five unexcused absences during a quarter.
Manchester School District Assistant Superintendent Nicole Doherty stated to the committee that 1,139 students had at least one NG grade during the 2022-’23 school year and 43 percent of the NG grades were attributed to families where English was not the primary language spoken in the home.
The NG concept itself was removed during the 2023-’24 school year following concerns that it unfairly impacted students from disadvantaged economic and cultural backgrounds who held additional family responsibilities outside of school or lacked proper communication or support frameworks to avoid consistent absences from school.
Although the Manchester School District’s high schools saw a slight increase in attendance during the previous school year, attendance was still cited as an issue as some students felt as though they could skip 20 to 30 days of school or more per quarter without consequences.
On Tuesday, all members of the committee agreed that student attendance is important, although there were differing opinions on how that could be improved.
Ward 5 BOSC Member Jason Bonilla felt that the NG concept itself was a cop-out, an easy response that should be discarded in exchange a deeper look at root causes of why students are absent to develop improved support strategies. He said without reform that gave students struggling to get to school a belief that it was not already too late, drop-out rates in the district would increase.
At-Large BOSC Member Peter Argeropoulos in contrast felt that the NG grade should not have been removed before a more thorough analysis and felt that it could be appropriate to reintroduce the policy if it could be targeted toward students who abuse the system rather than students with legitimate reasons for being absent that were not communicated.
BOSC Student Representative Fatuma Muhidin of Manchester Central High School said that students had taken attendance more seriously when the NG policy was in place, particularly once they got up to four unexcused absences. Muhidin also felt that her fellow students sought a framework to recover knowledge lost during missed class time as many students could simulate competency in a particular subject, leading to them falling further behind when those core concepts become building blocks of more complicated topics in later years. She also said that communication with teachers was important, using herself as an example in stating that sometimes she would have to come to school late due to responsibilities with her siblings.
Teaching and Learning Committee Chair and Ward 3 BOSC Member Karen Soule advised Doherty to assemble a group of administrators and teachers to develop strategies dealing with the issue and return with a report halfway through the school year.