Have you ever wondered what your physical education grade was but had no way of finding out? Well, those days are over. The physical education department has just announced that grades will now be posted on Genesis.

This comes after demands from students and teachers alike. Many say that by having up to the minute access to H/PE grades allows students to know exactly what they are getting at that point in time.

“I think students will appreciate the fact that they can go into grade book and see exactly where they stand as far as academic progress in their H/PE classes,” physical department supervisor Mike Davis said. “I do not think students want to be blindsided by their grades, especially if they are falling short, and this practice will clearly minimize that.”

Not only will students know where they are as far as H/PE grades go, they may also be more motivated to do better in H/PE.

“As far as the grade goes, I think if a student is aware they are struggling in PE, like any other class, they will ramp up their effort level to improve, so I do feel that academic awareness may lead to student motivation,” Davis said. “Of course, I would hope that students can find intrinsic motivation to try hard in PE class and should not only be concerned with their grade.”

In addition to improving student motivation for health and physical education classes, this new tool will also improve students’ relationships with their teachers. By having a constant update of grades, students will be able to communicate a lot more with their teachers about why they received a certain grade and find out what they can do to change that. At the end of the marking period, students will be less likely to blame their teachers for poor grades.

For years, students have wanted this to happen but the protest came to no avail. So what changed?

“The reason for the delay is that the elective program in physical education, coupled with lab days makes scheduling in H/PE quite unique, different from every other content area at HHS,”  Davis explained. “The elective program has been in place for several years and with the addition of Genesis to Hillsborough we found that there are several glitches with both systems and have diagnosed these problems along the way finally resulting in a solution.”  

Now many of you are probably reading this article and wondering why you personally might not be able to see your grade right now. Well, the reason being that not all of them are out there yet. The PE department says that their goal is to have all the grades out on Genesis by winter break. Although, they note that this process will continue throughout the school year.

Therefore, the question must be asked, will this continue for years to come? The answer to that question: yes.

“This practice for now is the expectation of the district and we will follow those expectations moving forward so that we are compliant,” Davis said.

So HHS, get ready to experience a new era. A time when we are no longer in the dark about what we get in gym on a daily basis and why we get what we do at the end of each marking period.