When Central Kitsap High School closed due to COVID in March of 2020, the world was taken aback. Many students were struggling in the online learning environment. To adjust to these struggles during this time, the school district began implementing incomplete rather than fails.

Incompletes began because the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction in Washington state began to recognize the hardship that students, family and staff were under during the closure of school; so during the 21-22 school year the school district began the A, B, C, I, grade scale, with guidance from the state.

At the beginning of the 2022 school year the letter grade F was brought back to Washington state schools because during COVID the state was in a state of emergency and Incompletes were considered temporary, according to Niki Orando, Incomplete contract coordinator at CKHS.

“Our transcripts have to adhere to what the state expects,” Orando says. “So that that was a contract order for a limited time. The reason F’s came back is because the Incompletes were only temporary during this emergency timeframe.”

The letter grade “F” is helpful to maintain a form of stability in high school student lives. Rather than an “F” saying you failed, the idea is that there is room for growth and improvement in the classroom, according to Orando.

“When humans, not just high school students, but humans, people who are my age…We function best when we have boundaries,” Orando says. “An F is like a form of a boundary. It’s good that it’s back because it can guide our behavior…With the F, there’s still an opportunity to recover, which lends itself to hope.”

Due to the state of emergency that not only Washington state was in but that the world was in during COVID, many new things were implemented into school systems, some things that may never change and some that may be removed as the world returns to normalcy.