19 DECEMBER 2011
By Troy Kleber and Olivia Veira
When Grady students received their fall midterm progress reports in October, several received incorrect grades in many classes.
Though it was unclear when this problem began, teachers first discovered the Infinite Campus student data management system miscalculated grades in mid October. The student data management system is a tool used for inputting and managing student data.
Infinite Campus is a company that provides its web-based student information system in schools all over the country, managing data for more than 4.5 million students. Atlanta Public Schools began using it in 2008.
After teachers noticed that Infinite Campus was incorrectly calculating grades, science teacher Jeff Cramer discovered the problem stemmed from the settings in Infinite Campus. Cramer said the teacher inputted grade weights were being overridden by Infinite Campus’s default settings, thereby causing a miscalculation of students’ final grades.
Many teachers make tests, quizzes and homework different percentages of a student’s final grade, and they can input the specific weight for each category in the settings of Infinite Campus. English teacher James Campbell said that when calculating stu- dents’ grades, Infinite Campus would incorrectly weight these categories since it was “not abiding by the options that the teacher entered.”
Campbell gave an example to illustrate how the grades were miscalculated.
If a teacher were to assign two tests, one worth 100 points and the other worth 50 points, the teacher could set the weight of the 100-point test to be worth twice the 50-point test. When posting these grades, however, Infinite Campus would disregard the teacher-assigned weights and average the two test grades equally.
“If you don’t go back and check the way you set up the original [weights], then we are going to end up giving students the wrong grades at the end of the semesters,” Cramer said. Though Cramer did not discover the prob- lem until after students received midterm prog- ress reports, Campbell believes the problem existed before then.
Registrar Chinaester Holland developed a step-by-step procedure for all teachers to follow to ensure grades are correct. Grady instructional coach Brandi Sabb disseminated this procedure to all teachers.
“Ms. Sabb sent a note out to everyone in the school and asked them to go back in and check [the grades],” Cramer said. “Whether everyone did or not is another matter.”
Cramer also spoke with Principal Vincent Murray and said Murray seemed concerned about the grade misspent grades were being miscalculated and said the teachers who said there was a problem with were wrong. Teachers maintain, however, that they have identified grade miscalculations in their own classrooms. Cramer said that, even now, it is pos- sible that teachers are publishing incorrect grades.
“What I was afraid of was that it was actually happening with every teacher [when] they weren’t checking it, because they didn’t really bother to notice whether the grades were right or not,” Cramer said.
Cramer said the grade miscalculations so far have not resulted in major changes in grades.
“[Grades] are not off by dramatic numbers,” Cramer said. “They might be off by three or four percentage points.”
Cramer has taken steps to fix the problem. He spoke with the APS Technology Support calculations but did not want to make the issue a big deal until he had figured out all the details and how to address the problem. In the meantime, Cramer worked to fix the miscalculations in his own classes. He told his students to calculate their grades and make sure their grade calculations corresponded with the grades in Infinite Campus.
“It would be terrible for me if I gave the wrong grades at the end of the semester,” Cramer said. “I would just be really embarrassed, but it’s bad for the students, too. If it was some- thing that I could have controlled, if I had been observant enough, then I would certainly want to be able to do that.”
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