Raised GPA for Open Campus
Grades slipping? Might have to say goodbye to your open campus.
The library may be getting more crowded as more and more students aren’t allowed to escape.
October 29, 2019
A new year at Chardon High School calls for some new rules and regulations, such as the GPA requirements for open campus being changed from 3.0 to 3.25. Students demanding answers to questions such as “Why is this change necessary?” because many are left with open periods and not permitted to leave the premises.
In an interview with Principal Murray, he had a good reasoning for this change. On the rise in GPA requirements, Principal Doug Murray said, “It originally was 3.25 prior to reconfiguration. Because of reconfiguration, we lowered the GPA so we could get more kids out of the building because we didn’t have room for that many kids in the building.”
When the 8th graders first moved up to the high school, the hallways were chaos, the lunch periods were loud and cramped; kids sitting on the floor eating their lunch. Having this change and allowing more people to leave the school was most likely necessary as a way to resolve the cluster of new students.
“Years ago now, we had a whole group called the Scheduling Task Force Group. We came together and made the recommendation that we should do open campus for juniors and seniors, and so they established the 3.25, so two years ago, that’s what it was.”
Most students had no knowledge of the previous GPA bring 3.25 two years ago. Of the students in the building today, none of them would have been able to receive an open campus pass 2 years ago because nobody would have been a junior or a senior during that time, hence why nobody seems to know of the previous GPA guidelines.
“What ended up happening was the there were a lot of issues where there were bad decisions happening outside of school. Situations that occurred that kind of ruined it for those that were not causing the problems, so it was determined that we go back to 3.25.”
This change was problematic with many students because they planned on having an open campus and now they are not able to go anywhere because their grades fell just short of the new requirements. Chardon High School student Allison Sutton said, “When I first tried to get my open campus pass and they wouldn’t let me, it honestly sucked. After a while, I began to do better in school, which made me work harder and feel a lot better about the situation.” Overall, students were unhappy with this new change but eventually found motivation through it.
