In June, I agreed to work with a group of community tutors who would help students in English. I believed that the assignment involved advising the tutors so that they could help struggling students be better prepared for next year’s classes. When I later discovered that one aspect of this summer program was to alter grades that students earned in the past academic year, based on their work with the volunteer tutors, I respectfully informed Vashon High School Principal Susan Hanson that I could not in good conscience participate in that effort. I believe it is neither educationally valid nor ethical for a student’s grade to be changed after a class has ended, based on work done primarily with a volunteer tutor. Here’s why.

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