Column by J1 Reporter Lucy Drexel 

When constantly checking my grades, I feel the stress and anxiety of not seeing a grade that I want to see. Despite ending the semester with grades that I am overall pleased with, there is always the stress of trying to get the one C or D up to a low B by the end of the semester.

Let me throw out this question, how is a C or a D fair if I know more than half of the material and showed that on my test? 

I’ve grown up my whole life hearing the phrase “Well, life isn’t fair Lucy,” but I have also grown up hearing “You get what you work for.” If I am studying for hours and I am understanding most of my material, why is a C or a D fair?

Students are being pressured into having the most amazing grades and if you don’t, it reflects poorly on who you are as a student or how successful you are going to be in life. Not only that, but PowerSchool often adds to that stress. There is nothing worse than seeing that little arrow pop up, indicating that your grade dropped, after the teacher put in the grade for a test you know didn’t go well. The grading scale has caused so many problems in the lives of students. If we changed how the grading scale works, and a 90 to a 100 was an A, an 89 to an 80 was a B, a 79 to a 70 was a C, a 69 to a 60 was a D, and anything below a 60 was F, then so much more stress and anxiety would be lifted off our shoulders.

 A grading system like this would solve so many problems. Students would become a lot happier and maybe actually enjoy doing their homework. They won’t have to worry about a test that they miss 10 questions on and may end up with a C or a D. They won’t have to tell their parents how hard they studied for this test, and they still failed. And maybe students would actually retain more information. Many of us just memorize the material for the test and forget about it as soon as we turn in that test.