JAY — Parents of a Jay High School student asked the School Committee on Thursday to make sure grades posted online are backed up, so what happened to their son does not happen to anyone else.

Dean Couture said his son had an 85 average in a history class as of mid-May when he was a sophomore, but when report cards came out in June, he had a 65 average. He said he and his wife, Pam, follow their son’s grades through the online grading program and saw an 85 for history.

They also said their son earned recognition as a scholar-athlete during the spring for the semester prior to school closing. If he had a 65, he wouldn’t have been considered a scholar-athlete, Couture said.

When the Coutures saw the 65 grade, they to the school to find out about it and were told that normally, teachers are not contacted until the fall, and it would be taken up then.

Couture said he waited a couple of weeks after school started and didn’t hear anything, so he spoke to a guidance counselor. The counselor told him he had to have come in during the spring to get the matter straightened out.

Couture said he has had no feedback from his son’s student teacher for history, though he was told the teacher came to the high school during the summer.

The teacher had been notified that the Coutures would be addressing the board Thursday but he was not present, School Committee Chairwoman Mary Redmond-Luce said.

Superintendent Robert Wall had contacted the student teacher, and the person said the grade was an 85 as was seen online, both Couture and Wall said.

Couture said he understood that by state law, the only person who can change a grade is the teacher. If the student teacher understood it was an 85, then one would think that the supervising teacher would agree, Couture said. However, the grade was not changed, he said.

  He asked the the school system to save and back up student grades online. 

“I guess if nothing else, I would like some hard policy or rule, so this doesn’t happen again,” Couture said. “I have a kid who made honor roll all the way up through.”

His son had never received a 65, Couture said, and it affected him when he got his report card.

Since it happened, a dual system has been put in place to back up the grades, Wall said.

Pam Couture said her son would have been a contender for the top 10 but likely will not because of this. The family puts academics first, she said, but the grade was also one of the reasons her son is not playing basketball this season.

She thanked Wall for all of his efforts throughout the ordeal.

The Coutures had planned to drop the matter, she said, but after attending parent-teacher conferences and listening to teachers say how well their son does in school, including getting a 98 average in junior history, they decided to come forward to make sure it doesn’t happen to him or another student again.

School Committee members directed Wall to make sure it doesn’t.

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