By MICHELLE IRWIN

Our SDUSD School Board adopted a new grading policy for all secondary schools. Effective Monday, Nov. 2, all secondary teachers will remove non-academic factors from academic grades and provide our students opportunities for retakes and revisions.
Non-academic factors may include awarding or removing academic points for participation, behavior, or a late submission of an assignment to mention a few. These non-academic factors may impact a student’s citizenship grade. Teachers will still have due dates in order to provide them the time required to grade and input data prior to the end of the grading period. There are limits to what a student can revise and the frequency in which they can do this. The revision/retake policy is designed to provide students with an opportunity to demonstrate mastery of a specific standard in a content area. Teachers will share updated information with our students and parents.

Certain elements of the grading policy adopted by the SDUSD School Board are designed to be implemented over the next two years.

As a district we are also gearing up to reopen our schools for Phase 2 in January 2021. There are many factors to reopen which include the utmost safety conditions based upon current status of the spread of COVID-19, agreements between our district and our employee unions and implementation of PPE equipment at every school. As I learn more, I will share information on our website and via SchoolMessenger.

Please remember to visit the Patrick Henry website for up to date information about our school and district: patrickhenryhs.net.

We hope you have a safe Thanksgiving Holiday. On behalf of the Patrick Henry High School Faculty, we want to thank you for being our partner in education so we can ensure all students graduate with integrity, purpose, and options.

Yearbooks and merch

The Patrick Henry High School 2021 Yearbook is now on sale, order at yearbookcenter.com and enter school code 8053. Parents wishing to share photos for the yearbook can use the portal at www.bit.ly/36h4RVS.

If you need of some sweet Patriot gear, the Sideline online store is now open for all Patriots. What’s super cool is that logos are interchangeable, can be swapped out, some colors can be changed, your name can be added to backs of items. There’s clothing as well as accessories. Visit www.bit.ly/3eF73Ky.

— Michelle Irwin is principal of Patrick Henry High School.