After over two years of work and nine different versions, it seemed like victory was in sight for those supporting the Legislature’s Equitable Grading Bill.

However, Head of School Anthony Meyer vetoed the Equitable Grading Bill on March 31, after it was passed by the student legislature on March 12, with a 21-11 vote. In the Warrior Bi-Weekly Meyer said he vetoed the bill because the issues covered shouldn’t be legislated in the handbook and should instead be left to curriculum coordinators. Student legislators and juniors Adithi Jayashankar, Daisy Huang and Eric Bardon have been working on the bill since the fall of 2023.

The bill would have implemented three requirements for different sections of the same course: midyear and final exams weighted the same and assessing a similar depth and breadth of content; late work and extension policies standardized, excluding accommodations and extenuating circumstances for students; and a standardized basis for final grades.

The Bill’s Divide

Across the high school, students and staff are strongly divided on the bill and what it addresses. Huang said that many have developed their strong opinions under false pretenses.

“A lot of people don’t understand the bill or have past versions mixed up with it, so they’re unsure about what the bill right now actually contains. People form really strong opinions about it without knowing the full scope of the issue and the bill itself,” Huang said.

Bardon said various members of the school community have pushed in support of the bill, including about half of the faculty in the legislature’s polling.

“This has been echoed by so many different people such as students throughout the school, teachers throughout the school and third parties like our accrediting association,” Bardon said. “This bill was the popular mandate at the school.”

Simultaneously, many oppose the bill. Meyer said that the strong opposition largely comes down to the issue of who should be in control of equity, rather than the idea of the bill itself.

“I think there is a portion of our faculty who says this is work we should own and that the curriculum coordinators should be directing. Even if we believe that the equity at the heart of this is important, we think it shouldn’t be legislated,” Meyer said. “It should be something that should be driven by our academic leaders.”

Handbook Controversy

Per Section 1.3 of Article 2 of the BHS Constitution located in the Handbook the “jurisdiction [of the legislature] includes but is not limited to all questions of discipline and school rules, attendance policy, scheduling questions (including general policies for test days), open/closed campus, course curricula, homework policy and grading policy.” Supporters of the bill argued that the bill falls under the authority of the legislature, but Meyer and others against the bill disagree.

“There is grading policy in some of the other parts—having a uniform policy on late work for example. Teachers and teaching teams make a variety of decisions that I think are more in practice,” Meyer said. “So having a biology team work on what are going to be common parts of our assessment and what might be unique to our courses, that to me is less policy and more teacher practice.”

According to Bardon, it is critical to have clear language within the handbook that outlines students’ rights as it provides guidelines that pertain to everyone. He said having things be considered common practices and left to the curriculum coordinators does not offer as much assurance for students.

“There is no language in the handbook now and there won’t be until this bill passes that students will expect standardization across different sections of the same course, and I think that is a monumental loss for students,” Bardon said. “Common practices leave students guaranteed with nothing. Common practices can change at any time. Handbook qualities are in there; they’re in that document that everyone is aware of and follows.”

Meyer, on the other hand, still said he feels that leaving decisions to curriculum coordinators can be successful, especially because of recent calls to action from the high school’s regional accreditation body, which evaluates a school’s overall academic quality and ensures it is meeting the right standards.

“I think [leaving decisions to curriculum coordinators] might be a slightly longer process than landing it in the legislature. I think it’s exactly the work we ought to be doing,” Meyer said. “[The regional accreditation body] named a few things as priority areas with our agreement and one of them was more common assessment practices. So I think we not only have a call within our faculty and student legislature, but also by our regional accreditation policy to have less autonomy in this area.”

Discussions Around Teacher Autonomy

Another main concern for those against the bill was the idea that it would take away teacher autonomy. Bardon said the bill was misjudged this way—it was not their intention to remove teachers’ control over decisions within the classroom.

“This bill leaves great amounts of room for curriculum coordinators and for teachers to make so many decisions. This bill would simply have brought a basis of standardization across three categories, and that is something that all students should be able to expect,” Bardon said.

Huang said some departments are already standardized, like math and Advanced Placement courses and that teacher autonomy should not be affected through this.

“The bill was only trying to address the main three topics which wouldn’t have affected teacher autonomy. It would’ve just standardized things that the curriculum coordinators should be doing anyway,” Huang said.

Bardon also specifically pointed to the example of midterms, when multiple exams are packed in a three day period. He said having vastly different midterms between students of different sections of the same course can greatly impact study time and, ultimately, one’s grades.

“We can’t ignore the fact that grades are in the background of the minds of every single student in the school and obviously teacher autonomy is what makes Brookline High School a great institution that allows a unique range of classes,” Bardon said “But ultimately, students should be able to expect a baseline, a very low baseline, of standardization across different sections of the same course.”

Speaking to the third section of the bill–standardization of final grades–Meyer said teachers can have differing opinions about how to weigh grades and that uniformity would erase their right to do so.

“If you maybe struggled in my [hypothetical] English class in quarters one and two and you show terrific improvement in three and four, I want to be able to weigh that,” Meyer said. “And I believe in teacher discretion to do that.”

Moving Forward

The members of legislature said they are disappointed by Meyer’s decision, but that they are optimistic that these disparities will be addressed by departments. They said they want to encourage students to bring their concerns over unfair differences between sections to curriculum coordinators.

Meyer said that despite his veto, he understands the call for more standardization and will continue to work with the student legislators on this topic.

“I super appreciate the work of the legislators who wrote this bill and revised it and met with a number of people. They did an incredible job and I’m grateful to them and would never want them to feel like their work was for naught,” Meyer said. “As much as I love autonomy and loved it in my teaching, I think over the last 15 years and certainly in the nine years that I’ve been head of school, we’ve tried to bend more towards some common predictable practices. It’s just a larger direction for the high school that I think is really powerful.”