Dear Editor:

My name is Maren Whitney, and I’m a junior at Boothbay Region High School. I’m writing to you to discuss the recent change raising a passing grade from a 60 to a 70 at BRHS. Our school committee approved this change on January 15.

In order to make this decision, Principal Welch sent out an email to all students asking the following question: “Do you feel that the passing grade at BRHS should remain a 60 or move to a 70?” Mr. Welch also sent a similar survey to the high-school faculty.

Most of my friends and fellow students, whom I spoke with, believe that the passing score should be kept at a 60. While as a student I don’t know the actual survey results, I would hope the school committee took the students’ results, as well as the staff’s, into careful consideration. As a student, I am concerned by the committee’s decision.

The decision was made to change the passing grade to a 70 for the 2020-2021 academic school year. The question that is still up in the air is that of whether the administration will make that change apply to only the incoming and future freshman classes, or for all current BRHS students, excluding the class of 2020. The latter option would mean that all the students before the incoming freshmen would have two separate transcripts, and for me and my fellow juniors, who would be seniors when this change would take place, that would be just another added stress to the process of applying to college, and for scholarships and grants. We would have to keep track of both transcripts. The voted-upon change also brings up the problem of changing the entire academic scale.

I, for one, really don’t want to have to keep track of a second transcript with all of the other stress of being a senior.

Maren Whitney

BRHS Class of 2021