Panelists talk student stress after documentary screening at Alex Theatre

The Glendale Educational Foundation hosted a screening of the documentary “Most Likely to Succeed” Thursday night at the Alex Theatre, where a student, parent and two educators participated in a panel discussion about current education trends, which they said are often stressful.

In the film, Greg Whiteley follows students and teachers at High Tech High, a San Diego charter school that emphasizes project-based learning over standardized tests.

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Tony Tartaglia, a Glendale Community College trustee, moderated the panel after the screening with Clark Magnet High student Mika Stanghill, parent Sandy Russell, Clark teacher John Over and Robert Hill, dean of student services at Glendale Community College.

Glendale Unified Supt. Winfred Roberson, who also participated in the panel, said he has heard rumblings from educators in higher education who are beginning to address the way students are admitted into college, which is often based on a student’s grade-point average.

“Somehow we have to move from a student’s self-worth and value being caught up in the grade-point average. It’s creating stressed-out students who are dealing with all types of issues. One of the most stressful times, I’m finding in a parent’s home, is right around college application time. Somehow, we’ve got to change this,” Roberson said. “There are students with skills and abilities and talents not being recognized because there are certain things they believe they have to do that is tied into a grade-point average.”

Mika spoke of being a “stressed-out student” herself, having spent much of the night before the screening working on her senior project.

She is a Clark senior, planning to pursue a college degree in bioengineering to eventually work in the prosthesis field.

She agreed that she shouldn’t be judged by her grade-point average.

She is currently enrolled in four AP classes at Clark Magnet, where she’s also president of the school’s robotics team, and she has earned a grade-point average higher than 4.0, all while volunteering.

However, she didn’t get accepted into UC schools she’d hoped to attend.

“They have thousands and thousands of people that are applying every single year, and they’re not going to want to know who you are as a person before they look at your test scores,” she said. “I’m a stressed-out student, and a lot of students are. We have to have a lot of extracurriculars. We have to have really high GPAs and we have to do really good on our test scores and that’s sometimes really not feasible, and still sleeping?”

Parent Sandy Russell said some colleges vet applications strictly by starting with a student’s grade-point average.

“Even for a student to get looked at remotely, is to have a 4.8 or some such nonsense, and the only way you get that is if you take a whole bevy of AP classes. I think that is such a disservice to the student,” she said.

She added that many students rush through the material presented in AP classes without truly absorbing the content just to take the AP exam in order to get the grade so they can better position themselves to be accepted into college.

“The question is, ‘To what end?’” Russell asked.

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Kelly Corrigan, [email protected]

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan

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