Upper School Newsletter – Aug 7, 2024

We will no longer use SchoolPass for communication between parents and the Upper School office regarding attendance.

For the last three years we have been using SchoolPass as an attendance application at Flint Hill. Though it has been a success at the Lower and Middle Schools, we have decided it does not meet our needs at the Upper School. We switched from direct communication with the Upper School assistant mainly because SchoolPass was supposed to provide an immediate snapshot of which students were in the building at any moment, while also serving as a communication tool between parents and the Upper School assistant. However, we were never able to achieve that immediate snapshot due to low student compliance with using the system. We believe that returning to direct communication between the Upper School office and parents is best for our families.

How to Report Absences, Late Arrivals, Early Pickups

We will revert to the previous system, which we believe will be easier for parents and increase clear communication. When an Upper School parent needs to communicate with us about an upcoming absence, they only need to email usattendance@flinthill.org. This will remove the need for an application and ensure that we are communicating directly with parents regarding their child’s attendance at school. Also, all students who arrive late to school or leave early from school will be required to sign out with the Upper School office. This will ensure that each student has parent permission for any late arrivals or early dismissals.

Returning Upper School families who don’t have children in the Middle or Lower Schools may delete the SchoolPass app. 

We will no longer use the terms “excused” and “unexcused” to describe absences.

We have received feedback from many of our parents that the term “unexcused” has a different connotation in the local school system, particularly a pejorative one associated with discipline or punishment. However, we have always tried to distinguish absences based upon whether a student is ill (and cannot complete work) or whether a student has a known upcoming conflict with their classes that they can plan around. As part of our approach of teaching the whole child, we want to instill in students the habit of communicating with teachers regarding upcoming absences and planning ahead for how they will finish their work. Also, our academic policies may require a student to complete some work (such as a quiz or test) before they are absent. To remove the pejorative connotation, but also to get to the essence of what we are trying to instill in students, we will simply classify all absences as "illness" or "other absence." We recognize that trying to create two simple categories will never perfectly fit the myriad of reasons students sometimes have to miss school, but hopefully, these groupings will remove the sting of seeing the word “unexcused." We feel that this moniker change, coupled with returning to direct communication between parents and the attendance office, will improve our attendance system.

We will shift from a quarter grading system to a semester grading system. 

Previously, Flint Hill used a grading system where students would receive a grade posted in Husky Hub each quarter. The semester grade (which is what we report on transcripts) was calculated by averaging the first and second quarters. 

With this system, we started to notice two features that weren’t optimal for student learning. First, we noticed that a de facto “midterm” week emerged, creating an abundance of work in mid-October and mid-March, which is when quarter one and quarter three ended. Second, we noticed that given the overall flow of the school year, it wasn’t possible to perfectly balance the quarters and evenly distribute assignments and assessments between them. 

Therefore, we will no longer “lock in” grades on a quarterly basis. Rather, the students' assessments and assignments will continue to tally throughout the semester, which allows the teachers to better utilize a myriad of assessments, factor in student growth, and avoid an “end-of-quarter rush” where students feel that they have a plethora of work all in one week.

Please note: You will continue to see quarter dates on the school calendar, and we will still refer to “quarters” so parents are aware when they will receive an update from the school about their student’s grades. As always, grades are available to parents whenever they would like to log in to Husky Hub and view their student’s progress.

As a reminder, while this may seem like a significant, and hopefully positive, internal shift, there is no change to how we publish grades to transcripts.

We are building new student support programs as well as enriching others to better support students.

Flint Hill believes strongly in empowering students to own their education. A couple of skills to owning your education include learning how to use free time wisely and creating academic improvement plans. We also believe strongly that every student is different. Some students may need more support than others at certain points. To better differentiate how we support students, we are taking the following steps this year:

• We have expanded the number of study sessions to allow more students to make use of that structured time if needed.
• We added 20 minutes of curriculum each week to study sessions about the science of learning. 
• We have expanded our quarter-long Human Development class for 9th grade to a semester-long course called 9th Grade Seminar. With the added time, we will include curriculum on the science of learning as well as adolescent health and self-care.

We have designed an academic probation system that will go into effect in January 2025. This system has a series of structures including weekly check-ins to help our students who might need an extra layer of support. This program was created through collaboration among the Director of Institutional Equity and Inclusion, the Director of the Learning Center, the Athletic Director, the Academic Dean, and a host of other stakeholders. If you would like more information about this system, as well as the other academic policies, please feel free to refer to our Upper School Academic Handbook.