Upper School transitions to a two semester system for the 2017-2018 school year.

For the 2017-18 school year, Malvern Prep’s upper school has switched from a quarters system to a semester system. This led to several other changes, like the new performance updates and more.

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• Quarter grades replaced by semester grades only
• Teachers will write mid-semester performance updates, called KiSH reports
• Student Handbook still refers to quarter grades

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The decision to switch from a quarters system to semesters was made for a variety of reasons. One was that the students needed more time to present a more accurate representation of their abilities in the classroom, according to Director of College Counseling Mr. Ian Harkness.

“One of the main drivers was that there wasn’t enough time to give a fair assessment of how you’re doing as a student,” Harkness said.

Assistant Head of School for Academics Mr. Patrick Sillup agreed, explaining the student needed more time to “tell his story” or represent himself accurately.

“The primary driver was the idea that the traditional quarter can be a difficult time for a student to tell his story,”  Sillup said.

The solution, he said, was to switch from quarters to semesters.

“A semester expands that, it gives you more time. There’s more assessments that fuel that grade, more contact time with teachers, and there’s more ability to showcase what you can do,” Sillup said.

Economics teacher Mr. John Ostick looking forward to the change from quarters to semesters.

“If we have two semesters, it’s a longer time period where each grade doesn’t mean as much, [and there will be] a discussion or reflection about what they’re learning,” Ostick said.

Upper School Math teacher Mr. Jim Stinger said that he liked the concept of having semesters instead of quarters.

“We’re going to have the luxury of making sure things were covered, so we can ease into a test or project and don’t have this artificial rush. Of course eventually that will happen, but I’d rather have two of those barriers than four of them,” Stinger said.

New performance updates in the middle of a semester will be implemented. These reports are named KiSH reports because they are composed of one kind, specific, and helpful sentence each. Most teachers added a description of these performance updates on the course syllabus.

Sillup said that the KiSH reports give the students an opportunity to hear what they need to do to better before their grade is finalized.

“You’re going to get three sentences from each teacher explaining what you can do in the next month before this grade gets finalized to make it look the way you want it to,” he said.

“I think the KiSH [reports] are a really good idea, because it puts emphasis on dialogue and reflection rather than a number,” said Economics teacher Mr. John Ostick.

However, the transition from quarters to semesters hasn’t been flawless. For example, the newly released 2017-18 Handbook contains a few mentions of quarters, among these are rules regarding Academic Probation and junior and senior study halls.

“Any student whose GPA at the end of the quarter is below 2.0, or any student who receives two F grades, or an F and two D grades, or three D grades, will be placed on Academic Probation for the entire next quarter,” the Handbook states.

Many students may be concerned. If the word quarter is replaced with semester, this means that the athlete wouldn’t be able to leave school early for an event for half of the school year.

The Handbook also states, “Juniors who earn honors for the first quarter will be eligible for replacing their study hall with an open period,” along with several other mentions of academic quarters.

Since September 8, the Malvern Weekly has asked students and parents to sign that they have received and read this Student Handbook.

“It seems to me that that statement is just dated in general. Because of that we have to think of a way guys know where they need to be. Mr. Dougherty and I were talking about what that would look like,” said Sillup.

Sophomore Jimmy McCullough said he thinks he’ll like having both his grades on MyMalvern and getting a KiSH performance update.

“The reviews and the teacher giving their opinion about how you’re doing and what you should improve is great,” McCullough said.