Software Glitch Prompts Vance Co. Schools to Reassess Student Grades

Software used by multiple school systems across the state suffered a glitch in programming that resulted in miscalculated student grades recently, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

Terri Hedrick, public information officer for Vance County Schools said the local school system was affected by the software glitch.

“We use the software for grade calculations for our high school semester grades in PowerSchool, which is the online application used by public school systems throughout the state to manage student information – from their personal information to test scores and classroom grades.”

“When we assessed our students’ grades, we found only a small number of students were affected. As we checked their first semester grades, we found that any student affected had a grade that was incorrectly increased by one point, in most cases. In all cases, no student grades were negatively affected or incorrectly calculated at a greatly inflated rate,” Hedrick explained.

According to Hedrick, the school system will continue to assess student data on a regular basis.