By Erin Delmore
Correspondent
Just as students at Dwight Morrow High School headed into a week long break, news their transcripts are in jeopardy.
“The new student information system started to push out errors, errors, errors,” said Englewood Public School District Superintendent Robert Kravitz.
Errors with credit value, grades and the weight of those grades into students’ GPAs, affecting their eligibility to graduate.
“The common theme here is the student information system that we switched to caused this problem. The new student information system alerted us to past practice problems,” Kravitz said.
Kravitz says the audit turned up 3,000 changes in the student information system. He can’t say how many students are affected, but 10 employees — including the high school’s principal and some guidance counselors — were placed on administrative leave last week.
“They have just been put on administrative leave, basically clearing the area to say go ahead and everybody can look at the files,” Kravitz said.
The personnel changes — a shock to students who protested by staging a walk-out on Friday.
“I wanted to protest because I didn’t find it right how they got fired. Well they didn’t get fired, but they were on administrative leave. We didn’t know that until after we spoke with the, well some students spoke to the superintendent,” said Dwight Morrow High School junior Alisha Romero. “A lot of colleges have like applications that needed to be turned in at a time, on a due date, and a lot of students couldn’t turn it in because my school gave them unofficial transcripts.”
“We have been speaking with a lot of the officials. We have a plan. We will get every child to succeed. We want them to succeed,” Kravitz said. “We don’t want them to go over the summer. We want to make those plans right now to say this is what needs to get done so you will graduate on time. If it means summer classes for some, so be it. We are here to help.”
The issue is stirring up anxiety among recent graduates, concerned their diplomas aren’t valid.
Kravitz confirmed he doesn’t have an answer.
We can’t tell these kids that their diploma won’t be revoked?
“We cannot say that at this point,” Kravitz said.
When you hear there are changes with grades, there’s an understanding how higher grades give the school a higher stature in the ranking of the state and higher yield at graduation does the same thing. Passing kids, giving them a higher GPA does affect the school positively?
“Correct,” Kravitz said.
Is that a concern as the person who signs the diploma? You sign off on this school district. You are the last person in line. Is it a concern?
“My concern is that every child gets exactly what they deserved, working in a class that was approved by the Board of Education with the proper credit evaluations,” Kravitz said.
Now the school’s student records are under review by the state Department of Education, which instructed the superintendent to immediately secure all documents in question.