Court rules teachers have final say on report cards
By John Loesing
Acorn Staff Writer

Parents and educators continue to weigh in on last month’s court ruling that says school teachers, not principals, have the final say on student grades.

The 2nd District Court of Appeals upheld a Superior Court ruling that said unless there’s been a mistake or fraud, the letter grade and citizenship grade that a teacher gives to a student cannot be changed by a higher ranking administrator, such as a principal.

The California Teachers Association (CTA) fought an appeal by Las Virgenes Unified School District, which wanted the ruling overturned.

The school district argued that Michael Botsford, the former principal at A.E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, had the authority to change the unsatisfactory marks given to three students in the school’s Discovery Music class. Parents who were upset about the poor citizenship grades complained to Botsford and requested the marks be changed.

During a grievance hearing, the district said teacher James Ferris failed to give the parents timely notification about impending bad grades and that Botsford was correct in changing the marks from unsatisfactory to satisfactory. The district contended that while principals cannot change letter grades, they can change citizenship marks, but both the lower court and the appeals’ court disagreed.

"Previous cases have held that a grade for purposes of the statute is not limited to a letter grade signifying academic performance and includes both an academic and behavior component," according to a CTA statement.

One student received a poor mark for misbehavior that occurred toward the end of a six-week class, causing a warning notification by Ferris to reach the parents late, according to Rosemary Ward, CTA attorney.

But Ward added, "Mr. Ferris complied with all the district guidelines, i.e. giving parents notices by certain deadlines."

Ferris, a 24-year veteran of the school district, said the policy about notification of bad grades was unclear when it came to citizenship marks.

"The issue was do parents also need to be notified about unsatisfactory behavior grades," said Judy Jordan, president of the school board. "The way (Botsford) interpreted the guidelines, they do have to be and they hadn’t been notified … It still isn’t clarified the fact that parents have to be notified of behavior grades as well as academic grades."

Sandra Pope, the district’s teacher union representative, said even greater issues still must be resolved.

"Who does the district want to go to the wall and defend?" Pope said. "When parents get real aggressive toward the district about grades, the district oftentimes will turn and try to get the teacher to back down rather than having the parent say to the student, ‘Hey, you need to step up and take responsibility."’

Botsford retired from the district and now teaches at Pepperdine University. Ferris remains at the middle school teaching math.

"The court was correct in reinstating Ferris’ original grades," said a CTA official.