Detailed grade reports will be posted on parent and student portals once a month following a policy change made mid-September based on parent feedback.

The changes were announced in an email sent to parents by Head of Upper School Butch Keller.

“A new item this year, the student’s gradebooks from each class will be posted monthly starting in October,” Keller said in the email. “The gradebook detail will list the overall grade of the course along with the individual grades of each assignment, project, assessment.”

The policy change follows an increasing number of requests from parents for continual access to student grades.

“I think there’s a large group of people that would want infinite access but that really invites a level of scrutiny that we don’t think is necessary or beneficial to our students,” Dean of Studies Evan Barth said. “This is a compromise of sorts.”

Though the administration has received positive feedback from parents following the change, student reactions vary.

“In a way it’s good because your parents get a good understanding of where you are in your understanding and how they can help you improve,” Arjun Subramaniam (10) said.

 Some students feel that their stress levels will increase following the change.

“[My parents will] just put pressure on me because they know my grades,” Helen Xie (11) said.

The administration does not anticipate that the change will alter the stress levels of students.

“I don’t think it should increase student stress,” Barth said. “If you’re a student here and you feel like your parents don’t want to know what your grades are, you’re in a bubble that you’ve created for yourself that doesn’t really exist.”

Detailed grade reports will be posted on the portals on Oct. 15, Nov. 19 and Dec. 17. Final exam results will be included not in the December grade report but in the report card posted Jan. 23.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on October 17, 2014.