The coronavirus pandemic has brought about many challenges for students and schools alike.

Many schools began the school year entirely remote and have since switched to hybrid or even full-time learning with adjustments.

Assignments and grades, in particular, have been even more of a challenge for students in these unprecedented times.

As such, some schools have used the pandemic as an excuse for students’ low grades and have implemented policies to rescue these students from sinking in the waters of failure.

Are failing students the only ones who deserve a little bump in their grades?

Every student has been affected by the pandemic in some way, not just those failing.  And for the students who have, despite the challenges, managed to keep their grades together, perhaps it is more impressive.  Don’t they, too, deserve something?

Pandemic or not, everyone earns the grade they have; if they are doing poorly, they earned that grade, as did the students who are doing everything they are supposed to do.

Rewarding only the failing is unfair to all the students that went to school and attended all of their online classes and earned a passing score.

Perhaps an alternative is that every student should be able to drop a select few assignments from each class.  That way, it’s the same policy for every student giving everyone the same fair advantage.

If the school is going to bump a group of people’s grades, they should equally bump everyone’s grades to make it fair across the board.

The only reason a school’s policy of rewarding only the failing could be deemed acceptable is for certain students who don’t have a reliable connection to the internet due to certain reasons such as financial situations or their home life. As with anything, there are exceptions.

Students who went to school, whether it was in person or online, should be the ones rewarded for their hard work and dedication to learn rather than the students who stayed home, slept in, did not attend their classes, and or did not do any of their assignments.

So, in regards to the pandemic and schooling, should schools be making accommodations for students’ grades? If so, to what degree? And shouldn’t it include all students and not just the group who is failing?