The students and their parents say providing a student choice option to receive a legitimate letter grade would respect the students' work and prevent avoidable damages to LBUSD students' college admission competitiveness (which they say some other districts have managed to avoid.) Ms. Cantrell wrote in her petition:

[LBUSD's credit/no credit policy] means that students could have all D’s and still receive the same credit had they gotten A’s which seems completely unjust. Colleges won't see students’ grades for this semester which heavily lowers their chances to get scholarships or to go to college. AP classes will not be accounted for in GPA’s as well...For me, I have always wanted to get straight A’s, if the credit/no credit system is used, all of my hard work, dedication, and perseverance will be for nothing. Students have put hours and hours into their school work...I implore the school board to give students the option to have grades...Without grades, I, along with countless other students, will not be able to succeed as we would with them. This is detrimental to our livelihoods. Please get the school board to consider using grades again or giving students the option to have them. With this choice, students can decide which system they want which benefits all of our futures. In addition, other school districts have given students the option between letter grades and credit/no credit. Since they are given the choice, LBUSD students should also be given the choice.

On May 6, students and parents brought the LBUSD management action to the policy-setting elected LB School Board. The issue wasn't an agendized item but the public has a right to comment on non-agendized items. And they did. LB school board members got an earful with 28 minutes of student and parent emailed statements read aloud by an LBUSD staffer at the teleconferenced meeting. All of the emails urged inclusion of a student choice option. To hear on-demand what schoolboard members heard on May 6, click here.

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Despite the passionate petition and unanimous public comments, the School Board couldn't act on May 6. Under CA's Brown (open meetings) Act, a legislative body (like the School Board) can't take voted action on an item unless it's agendized. No elected schoolboard member had done so.

However to its credit, LBUSD has a process letting the public request that an item be agendized; if the Superintendent agrees, it's done. Two people used that process. One was Riley Cantrell's grandmother, Ann Cantrell, a veteran LB civic participation advocate.. Another was Tanya Wannemacher, who indicated in her request that she seeks a student option for letter grades on behalf of Wilson High School students.

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To his credit, Superintendent Steinhauser agreed to advance the item to the School Board's agenda. It's now on the May 20 School Board meeting agenda as an "information/action" item, stating simply:

BACKGROUND:

Members of the community request that the grading policy be changed to allow students in grades 9-12 a choice of credit or letter grades for the spring semester of 2020.

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The credit/no credit change was announced by the Superintendent on April 16, 2020 with this explanation in pertinent part:

With the pandemic crisis in mind, we have adjusted our student grading measures accordingly as indicated in this one-page Expectations for Students document. In summary:

Grading embraces a "do no harm" philosophy"

Elementary students will not receive Achievement Reports (Report Cards) for the second semester

Students in grades 6 to 8 will receive Pass/Fail final grades.

Students in grades 9 to 12 will receive Credit/No Credit final grades.

Guidelines for the amount of daily learning vary by grade span..."

Because LBUSD commendably allows the public to advance items to the electeds' agenda, the public has some check and balance on this issue. One way or anotherm, there will be a recorded vote by elected School Board members on this hot button issue. In addition to its personal impacts for LBSUD high school students and their parents, the upcoming vote may also generate political fallout. One LBUSD school board seat is contested in a November 2020 runoff. Three LB school board seats come to voters in less than two years (by which time some of the students impacted may be old enough to vote.

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In contrast to LBUSD, Long Beach's City Council doesn't allow the public to agendize items for Council voted action...although it previously did so for years. In a stealthful mid-1990s Council action under then-Mayor Beverly O'Neill, LB's then-Councilmembers erased that public right to agendize Council items (and despite frequent lipservice to encouraging "public engagement," LB's current Mayor and Councilmembers haven't restored what LB residents had.

By mid-1996, Mayor O'Neill (elected two years earlier) had grown increasingly intolerant of those who objected to some things she wanted done. Petitions and a lawsuit flew over a proposed pay-for-play Sports Complex in El Dorado Park (an issue in which Ann Cantrell was directly involved.) Pre-internet faxes flew over a Port-desired plan to bulldoze the LB Naval Station (and its ample high rise housing, gymnasium and swimming pool) for what video-journalist Huell Howser later derided as a "container yard."

Mayor O'Neill showed her disdain for dissent during an August 1996 meeting of CA delegates to the Democrats' National Convention. Mayor O'Neill thanked President Clinton's administration for COPS grants, HUD and EDA assistance and stated: "We will no more have the good old days, we will have better new days. And don't listen to the CAVE people, those are Citizens Against Virtually Everything" (for which she was cheered and applauded.)

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In that toxic atmosphere, an item quietly appeared on the June 11, 1996 City Council agenda listed as "changing the order of business" at the Council meetings. But it didn't just "change" the Council's "order of business." It erased an item of Council business -- "communications from the public" -- which were items agendized by members of the public (under a specific Council procedure.)

Below is the LB Municipal Code showing the Council's order of business as it appeared before the June 1996 agenda item (with the "communications from the public" section circled in red by us:)

The June 11, 1996 agenda item "changed the order of business" by quietly removing that LB civic right. Below is the amended Council "order of business":

The vote was 9-0: Yes: Oropeza, Lowenthal (Alan), Drummond, Clark, Robbins, Topsy-Elvord, Donelon, Kellogg, Shultz. Two days later on June 13, 1996, Mayor O'Neill signed the amended ordinance.

And poof: the public's right to agendize Council items disappeared.

A ghostly remnant of the public's previous right remains in LB's Municipal Code. Section 2.03.090 A includes the procedural text: "No ordinance, resolution, motion, petition, appeal, report or any other matter, thing or proceeding whatsoever, presented by any person not a member of the Council [emphasis added], shall be presented to or considered by the Council unless the subject matter thereof, signed by the person desiring to be heard in connection therewith, is presented, in writing, to the City Clerk before twelve o'clock (12:00) noon of the Thursday immediately preceding the date of the meeting at which the same is to be considered..." [emphasis added] This verbiage is now a headless zombie with no connection to any item in the Council's "order of business" for "any person not a member of the Council" to implement it.

From time to time, LB's current Mayor and Council voice support for increased public participation. Any one of them could agendize an item to restore the public's right to agendize items "on any Tuesday."