New policy changes that will help students get a cleaner academic record and raise their grade-point averages were announced at the Academic Senate meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 19.
Meant for students who perhaps had a rocky start at college but have improved, the renewal clears grades that may lower students’ GPA, Vice President of Educational Policies Darcie McClelland said.
“It’s kind of like a second chance,” McClelland said during the meeting.
Administrative Procedure 4240, also known as an academic renewal, allows students with previous bad grades at El Camino College to petition the college and get those grades disregarded when calculating their GPA.
The current policy, amended in 2016, has several requirements for renewals, including a minimum of a 2.25 GPA when applying and at least two years to pass since the bad grade was given.
With the proposed policy, those requirements would be considerably lowered, including having a 2.0 GPA and requiring only one semester to pass since the bad grade.
The amount of credits disregarded will also be raised from 24 to 30.
Vice President of Student Services Jeff Stephenson said the idea for the proposal was brought up during his welcoming ceremony when he first joined El Camino.
“A student pointed out that the number of units were lower and GPA [required] was higher for academic renewal compared to our surrounding colleges,” Stephenson said.
Other colleges like Long Beach City College, the LA Community College District and Santa Monica College already adopted a more lenient policy, including the lower time and GPA requirements El Camino plans to change to.
The policy does have some caveats.
Disregarded grades aren’t completely erased from a student’s transcripts. While they may no longer count, the grades will remain by being marked with the letter L.
“Their transcript stays true to every course that they enrolled in and receive credit, whether it’s satisfactory or not,” Registrar Lillian Justice said during the meeting.
While academic renewals are honored by most UC and CSU schools, the National Collegiate Athletic Association does not, barring any student-athletes from using it.
Also, if the applicant has already received a degree from El Camino, the renewal can only be used to get rid of units that resulted in an F letter grade.
The policy is still in the works and must go through the district’s policy system starting with another Academic Senate meeting, McClelland said.
“From there it needs to go through two college council meetings, then it needs to be approved and then it needs to get on the board agenda,” she said. “Consultation, when it’s fast, is about a two to three-month process.”
The revised policy, which McClelland expects to pass, is estimated to come into effect in November or December of 2023.
Editor’s Note: Date corrected in the story on Sept. 20, at 9:43 a.m.
