In a Baltimore school, Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts, a student with a GPA of 0.13 went through high school having skipped over 200 days of school and failed all of his classes except for three. Questions are arising as to why this student was able to go through high school performing poorly and missing so many days. People are also wondering why so many other students are also in similar situations academically. According to Fox 45 News, the student was ranked 62 out of 120 in his class.
The student’s mother, Tiffany France, is deeply concerned for her child and is asking questions about why this happened. “He didn’t fail, the school failed him. The school failed at their job.” The school did not allow the student to graduate and is pushing him back to ninth grade. Throughout the student’s high school years, he was allowed to move through academic levels; he was moved from Spanish l to Spanish ll even though he had failed the first level. Students are usually expected to pass a course in order to move on to a more advanced level; however, this was not the case for France’s son. According to Fox 45 News, France said that the school had not alerted her that her son was not doing well and was failing in school. She was made aware of the situation last month after discovering her son was going to have to go back to ninth grade. School officials claim to have made efforts to help the student and inform the mother, claiming that they sent letters home and that France met with leadership at the school. France denies these claims.
This is not the only issue that Augusta Fells has had to deal with. According to The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore city school officials have recently apologized for “grading irregularities” discovered in the summer of 2019. The problem “resulted in students losing course credits” and led to the principal and assistant principal being put on administrative leave.
Some people are calling for the school to be shut down amid issues surrounding the institution and its alleged negligence. News of this particular story traveled up and Governor Hogan discussed the matter and is calling for an investigation into the problem.
Sources:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-hogan-investigation-baltimore-augusta-fells
The Scroll 