online Grades

Under the current circumstances I believe colleges should give pass/fail grades unless a grade level is required as prerequisite to advance to a higher level course. 

We have a Pass/Fail option that a student can take.  However, a D grade for an undergrad student cannot be counted as Pass, since they are not technically "passing".  In the OP, if there are changes to the syllabus that hurts the student, you can complain, and you will usually win.  Most faculty are making things more lenient.  I know that I am, but I also give them more busy work than I would usually do (since I don't trust testing as much).

Many universities are going either to everyone getting only pass/fail grades, or having that as an option with it counting toward majors, etc.  I think required pass/fail is not great, because it penalizes students who are getting As, but I see the point.  If there is a P/F option, then he should take it.

My high-school son's system announced that no grades can be worse than they were before online began, they can only be the same or get better.  My son had been struggling in some classes and had planned to be working very hard this spring, which he has been doing from home.  In some classes it's working out better, in some it is not. 

Also curious about this. Some students need to be in a classroom 3 days a week, taking notes, asking questions in real time. They go home and now there are distractions at home, vacuum cleaners, dogs barking, etc. Students likely aren't as engaged as they may have been. No study groups, no written notes on the board, etc. Sometimes a student needs to shut the phone off and go the library a few times a week to study but that's no longer an option. 

I would assume this is the part where your son needs to do some sucking up to the teacher. Setting up one or two conferences a week to go over material, ask about personal life - how he's holding up, etc. That way if it ever gets to the point where your son is in trouble the conversation goes from A student who stopped trying when he got home to A student who was on top of everything and struggled due to circumstances. Personally I thought the withdraw from course date should have been lifted without penalty and without it showing up on record as long as you were passing before remote learning started. But that is not likely in the school's interest. I bet coaches will have something to say about it when they start bringing players back and some find themselves ineligible because of a class or two. 

My son is a high school senior and we were already done with the 3rd quarter when our schools shut down. He is finishing the classes online now and the grading policy is that they cannot do worse than their 3rd quarter grade. Students have opportunities to improve their grade based on tests and participation. All his teachers (except PE and music) have arranged for live office hours, some Zoom meetings, and recorded lectures. We did set up a couple of outside tutoring sessions for math as he is taking a high level Calculus class.

His future university (Northwestern) is making all spring quarter classes Pass/Fail. Given all the dynamics of the current situation, I think that was the right way to go. 

My two college kids have P/F with receiving a letter grade optional.  I haven't heard anything about my HS kid's school's policy.  Seems like it's business as usual there.

Our district plans to give letter grades to high school students. All students are passing, save those who were already given an “in danger of failing” notices that had gone out already prior to the shutdown (progress reports).  Remediation will be done with students that are expected to need additional support next year based on their remote learning (or there lack of).  Initially, I was happy to avoid the potential headache of having a pass/fail grade for NCAA clearance (ya’ll have ruined my belief they won’t mess things up), but now after seeing Lefty’s grades go from all A’s and one B to a 2.5, not sure how I feel about this.  I think it will be easily explained on a college application, but it still blows. 

My HS "extended" 3rd quarter through the end of the year. So the time (mid-January to end of year) will count 40%, rather than two 20% quarters. Our finals will be more "project-based" not traditional test. It's been a lot of work preparing lessons and developing several versions of online assessments.

Here's three different college scenarios in order from the best to the worst:

Notre Dame: You can determine AFTER receiving your final grades if you wanted to make any courses pass/fail.

University of Akron: Students have to decide a couple of days before Finals if they want to opt pass/fail on a course. Finals continue to have a hefty weight.

Yale: Changed decision mid stream (after a choice) to pass/fail for every course for every student. I know a student who is Livid as this was a great semester, and she was sitting on 3 A's and an A- in four of her courses. There is also a senior ballplayer who was looking at a much better semester (really pushed) to help in his internship/job search.

Definitely not uniform methodology.

HS grading in our district is kind of weird, but in this case I think it works. Student does not tun something in they get a 0. Turns it in but bombs it, they get a 65, turns it in and does "well" they get 100. Please don't ask me to define "well" (maybe get 50% or most right), I'm not the teacher, the wife is. LOL