Standards based grading is more than just an area of concern. It has costs parents of graduating seniors thousands of dollars by lowering the top 25% of MGSH, Osseo & Park Center High School students overall GPA. In turn, these students have lost out on merit scholarships private colleges offer. Case in point, St. John's and St Ben's give $15,000 on GPA/Act score standards. By shortening the grade point average gap the district in their wisdom have lowered the Top Students GPA.
Also Standards Based Grading puts too much pressure on the teacher to evaluate each student on where their base knowledge starts and where it ends. It is meant to be easier but the class sizes are too large.
In theory Standard Based Grading is great, but in practicality with a distinct as big as ours, it doesn't work.
With a $11 million shortfall, all the training to implement this grading system is ill placed money. Standards based grading doesn't solve the social welfare gap that undermines students performance in school. Nothing can replace the influence of family in producing success at school.

"Achieving the desired objectives". Yes they are, if their objectives were to:

1. Punish hard working students and reward failing students with as many chances to get a C or D as possible.
2. Close the achievement gap by making it harder for hard working overachieving students to get A's and B's and easier for failing students to now get D's.

or my personal favorite...

3. Implement the entire SBG program so horribly they had to hire dozens, if not hundreds, of teacher coaches at a great expense to the district; then tell us they need more money because the cost of educating students is going up. REALLY!

The Superintendent and School Board of Dist 279 should move to Washington DC because you're starting to act like and sound like career politicians.

Standards based grading is not the only area of concern for this school district. I'm sure not many people will mention this, but this superintendent needs to also address the issue of subliminal racial inferiority messages being taught in at least one of this disctrict's schools. I removed my child from a school in this district due to the presentation of racially insensitive, violent, and therefore destructive material presented in second and third grade classrooms without a second thought. Following up with the offending teachers and principal did absolutely no good. They just don't get it and I don't think they want to get it. This district likes to speak of the value of diversity, but their actions are inconsistent with their words (at least in Maple Grove since that is the area of the district with which we've had experience). I'm extremely disappointed that the concept of "light is right and dark is bad" is still being taught in school today, not to mention the fact that it's being taught on basically a subliminal level. This is unfair to both light and dark skinned human beings - the messages taught to children stay with them forever. This district is a huge disappointment and this issue needs to be addressed and fixed!