Students Below Average
100 with average below 2.0 won't get diplomas

BY SUSAN DICKERSON
SALISBURY POST

If high school graduation were today, 100 students or 10.3 percent of the senior class would not graduate because of the 2.0 grade point average standard.

This is the first year all students must have a 2.0 in their core courses - science, math, social studies and English - to graduate with a diploma.

But those numbers can be deceiving. Seventy-five students won't graduate for other reasons, and some of those may not have a 2.0, either.

That's the report the Board of Education's Curriculum Committee received Wednesday at its meeting.

School officials didn't show how many black students versus white students are not meeting the 2.0 standard, despite a federal complaint the standard discriminates against black students.

Of the students who would not graduate because of the requirement:

- 18 are at East Rowan High School.

- 18 at North Rowan High.

- 25 at Salisbury High.

- 23 at South Rowan High.

- 16 at West Rowan High.

Fifty-one other students won't graduate because they haven't taken enough classes and 24 won't graduate because they haven't passed the N.C. Competency test. All students must pass the competency test, given in the eighth grade, before they graduate.

Of the 100 students below the 2.0 average, school officials think half of those might make the average by the end of the school year. Schools are trying hard to give remediation to students using computerized fast track programs.

Half of the 100 students ''are sitting at a 1.7 GPA or above,'' said Matthew Sullivan, high school director for the schools.

At Salisbury High, Principal Dr. Windsor Eagle said, after looking at grades, ''We believe we can have all of our students with all their courses made up.''

In a frenzy to remediate students, Eagle said students aren't paying enough attention to their current courses and are falling behind with D grades. ''They're not taking the current year as seriously and are falling behind. They're making A's in their makeup and are making D's for this year. ... They're not seeing enough time and effort in their current classes to rise above breaking the pattern that put them here to start with.''

Kay Norman, curriculum committee chairwoman, said if the board and staff had been paying ''more attention to that in the first year, 1993, then I don't know that we would be in a different place. We might be looking at 5 percent instead of 10 percent.''

Even with pressure on students to raise their grades, students haven't been dropping out at a higher rate, said Associate Superintendent Howard Hurt, responding to Norman's question.

''But this second semester will be when it hits,'' Hurt said.

Eagle disagreed. ''As students get closer to the 2.0, they may hold on rather than drop out.''

Committee member Dr. Ada Fisher took school officials to task over their statistics. She said the school system should have the numbers of dropouts with demographic data, along with the demographic data for the 2.0.

''I get very frustrated when groups don't have that data,'' she said. ''I'm extremely concerned about the minority students in these categories.''

Sullivan said he would go back and run the numbers again to determine the demographic information.