Portfolio BCTF FAQ

The BC Teacher's Federation has updated their Graduation Portfolio FAQ added to their regular graduation requirements information page. There is some useful information that clarifies how to deal with portfolio issues in uncertain times.

I have highlighted a few excerpts:

Is it possible that the portfolio requirement will be scrapped altogether?
Yes, but that option may not be canvassed at the regional review forums.At the superintendents’ conference in August, the deputy minister apparently made it clear that the portfolio requirement could be revised or eliminated as a result of the review. However, ministry staff say that “during the review, educators, students and parents will revisit the original goals of the portfolio and consider how best to achieve these goals”. It is clear that ministry staff support a simplified, but still mandatory, grad portfolio.

Do teachers still have to start the portfolio in Planning 10?
Yes, teachers are still obligated to teach all the Planning 10 learning outcomes including those related to portfolio. However, teachers might want to postpone instruction on learning outcomes related to the portfolio to the end of the course in case there is a decision to eliminate the portfolio by December or January.

What about the staffing our school/district put in place to support the grad portfolio?
Staffing that is freed up as a result of the portfolio not being mandatory for this year’s graduates should be applied to the implementation of Bill 33.

The minister’s announcement came after schools and districts had finalized staffing. The announcement does not impact the amount of staffing needed to teaching Planning 10 as that is still a compulsory course. However, it will impact the amount of staffing necessary to support portfolio development by Grade 11s and 12s.

Schools that offer a portfolio class in the timetable should ask students whether they want to continue with this class or choose another elective. Schools will have to reschedule Grade 12 students who opt not to complete the portfolio, and Grade 11 students who do not want to work on their portfolios until the review is complete and the ministry has announced a decision.

Can schools or districts make the grad portfolio a requirement?
No, graduation requirements are a matter of provincial policy, not district or school policy. Students are awarded a British Columbia Certificate of Graduation (“Dogwood Diploma”) for successfully meeting the requirements established by the ministry in either the Graduation Requirements (1995 Grad Program) or Graduation Program (2004 Grad Program) Orders. Schools or districts may require students to take certain courses or programs over-and-above those established by the ministry for graduation, but students who satisfy the ministry’s graduation requirements receive a Dogwood Diploma.

Some schools and districts are trying to keep the portfolio mandatory for their Grade 12s this year. Others are strongly “encouraging” students to complete their grad portfolios. It is difficult for students to distinguish between what is encouraged and what is mandatory. It is important that districts, schools, and teachers communicate to this year’s Grade 12 students, in an honest and straightforward manner, that they have the option of not completing the portfolio, taking Standing Granted, and getting four credits.

The BCTF has also announced the regional portfolio review forum dates that will be occurring in BC. In Nanaimo, this takes place at the Dorchester Hotel on October 13th.

This BCTF FAQ is helpful at a time when some district portfolio school administrators are trying to "encourage" parents to sign up their grade 12 kids through such scare tactics as telling parents that it will be detrimental to their kids’ future to choose to have SG (Standing Granted) on their transcripts as this looks suspect.

The other misinformation being circulated is that the grade 12 students that are opting not to complete the portfolio are getting four credits through Standing Granted "for not doing anything". This is not true at the school where this information is being circulated as students in grade 12 this year were required to attend a compulsory a half semester non-credit grade 11 portfolio course last year; The total hours of which amounted to a two credit course. Furthermore, many students in some schools were also forced..oops! I mean "encouraged"...into taking a PE 11 course.

The Face of Encouragement!

The Delusion of Choice

A recent district news release on September 5th, 2006 indicates that the district has chosen to attach completion of the portfolio by grade 12 students to the Passport to Education. Dr. John Phipps, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Programs has indicated, in the context of announced Ministry changes to the 2006-07 grade 12 student portfolio requirements, that: “These students now have the option of making their portfolio presentations and receiving a mark for their work. Under the Ministry of Education guidelines, the portfolio mark will make up 75 percent of the calculation for eligibility for the Passport to Education. This is a real opportunity for students who might not otherwise be eligible to earn the $500 Grade 12 Passport to Education scholarship credit.”

However, the Ministry of Education portfolio website states otherwise:

• Schools "may" use the Portfolio mark to calculate Grade 12 Passport award stamps.
• Schools should apply the Grade 10 and 11 Passport award stamp criteria to students who have elected to use SG.

(Full text for this policy is the 2006/2007 Handbook of Procedures on page 113)

In other words, it is the schools' choice to tie the Grade 12 Passport to education to the completion of the portfolio. However, the district is attempting to make it appear that it is the Ministry guidelines that are requiring this when the reality is that the Ministry is providing district schools with that choice.

Students and their parents are once again being subjected to conflicting district and provincial educational political messages in, what I can only guess, is an effort to deflect blame in the same way district students were treated with the CTC situation; a most unprofessional conduct by the district and ministry leadership. It remains to be seen what version of the truth will be disseminated by school administrators.

The district and ministry leadership have put these kids and their parents through enough bullshit to award all of them with a 100% mark and $500 in compensation for surviving a seriously flawed implementation of a BC educational policy.

Reprieve for Grade 12 Graduation Portfolio Guinea Pigs

After a Ministry sponsored and facilitated graduation portfolio forum, held on May 1st 2006, teachers, administrators, and parents made some joint recommendations on a variety of portfolio topics.

At no time was there any indication that the first wave of 2006/2007 grade 12 students would be given a reprieve, despite concerns expressed about the ability of some grade 12 students to complete the portfolio, and consequently to graduate.

Shortly thereafter, on May 12th, the Deputy Minister of Education, Dr. Emery Dosdall, issued a Report on Education on the Portfolio that consisted largely of a BC Graduation Portfolio PR plug. Since then, the Ministry of Education staff have added significant resources to its ministry portfolio resource website, a website with student sample portfolios, and two days ago, the Minister of Education, the Honourable Shirley Bond, announced a reprieve for the grade 12 students. This was reported on the CBC, and Ministry staff have been scrambling to explain what this announcement means.

Why the sudden change of heart and why was this announced in the middle of summer when teachers, school staff, students, and parents are not in communication with one another and are unable to clarify what the local school ramifications that such a reprieve will entail? While the reprieve is appreciated by many grade 12 students who have not had a fair chance at completing the requirements or getting school support, it is not clear what led to this being an 11th hour decision, and whether this information was new or was already known on May 1st. It is also not clear what the full scope of the complexities this annoucement will have on the grade 12 students as they come to grips with decisions that they have to make in the fall. How will their graduation course requirements change? What required course will have to be taken to graduate should students opt out of the portfolio process? And, what about the grade 11 portfolio course that many of them were forced to take?

What were some of the potential issues with the Portfolio? Here is a list of ten things that I hate about the graduation portfolio. Well, perhaps hate is a strong word but this roller coaster ride is definitely starting to make me gag.

1) The schools and the Ministry have not demonstrated the relevance of the portfolio to students by providing real examples where portfolios are used and where they are not used. If any employer in Nanaimo uses the portfolio, I challenge you to post it on this blog along with your specific portfolio format requirements!

2) Some schools are turning this process into a spoon feeding exercise where the teachers choose the choice aspects for the students rather than providing the students with choice. This, I’m sure, makes it easier for teachers and administrators to revert to the teaching model that they are most comfortable with. In the classic analogy, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail - for many teachers this means classroom lectures is the only means of learning - thus, completely losing sight of the Ministry statement: “Rather than a course, the Portfolio is a three year process where students work in a self-directed fashion.” Spoon feeding students takes away the best thing about the portfolio which is to allow students to take ownership of the portfolio process.

3) The objective of the graduation portfolio is to promote the graduation portfolio as stated in two of the presentation evaluation criteria:
- Demonstrates meaningful reflection on the portfolio process and learning.
- Demonstrates meaningful reflection on the Graduation Portfolio experience and how it might affect future life choices.
Students have been told that this means they have to say something positive about the graduation portfolio. In other words, the students are there to “sell” the portfolio to the community members and make sure the school looks good regardless of how their experience with this process was. Furthermore, the focus of these criteria is on promoting the portfolio process not the reflections on the students’ achievements.

4) The portfolio process has no specific objective that students can target their portfolio content towards. For example, the portfolio is not being presented to an employer for a specific job or as an application for a scholarship. As it stands, it is a disparate collection of checked items that need not have a concerted objective other than to promote the BC graduation portfolio program (This has been built into the presentation evaluation criteria, see #3), and to artificially fabricate, in each student, the averaged profile of a successful student.

5) I would like to see it as a requirement that every teacher, administrator, and Ministry staff have a publicly available electronic portfolio on the e-portfolio system that is being forced on students. Then maybe the teachers and schools who are mandating the use of the e-portfolio can rethink mandating a single electronic medium on students. Besides, if the software was of good quality, user friendly, and offered the students what they wanted, they would be flocking to use it for their portfolio.

6) There is generally a lack of school coordination on record keeping policies and procedures for the graduation portfolio, and insufficient staff training on what these are. This means that there is a high likelihood that records and assessments over the three years will be lost; this has already happened in our district.

7) The May 12th deputy minister’s report on Education states:
“We heard concerns about the limitations of provincial exam marks and the need to assess student performance in relation to other important skills needed for success in life”.
The Ministry heard the concerns about the limitations of provincial exams marks and subsequently created more marks rather than a process. They don’t seem to get it: you cannot reduce the sum total of an individual’s accomplishments to a number and not introduce a significant limitation in assessment. The argument will be made that they are now assessing, using marks, “other” skills besides those measured by conventional provincial exams.

8) Another statement in the same report states: “Change is never easy, and the quality of implementation for any new educational program improves dramatically in the first several years after start-up.” The grade 11 and grade 12 kids have been written off as the first pancakes that you always throw out; despite the reprieve this has been a terrible experience.

9) His further statement: “this innovative assessment and learning tool adds to our worldwide credibility as a public education system.” has taken what was an innovative idea and transformed it into just another course with a grade. It would have been truly innovative if it were a complete/incomplete process. Think about it, when post-secondary institutions are determining grade cut-off points do you really think that they are “not” going to be using the portfolio grade? It is far more costly from the perspective of time and effort to actually review a portfolio and even more costly to set up a time to have students present their portfolio.

10) Why was the portfolio not phased in earlier as optional, thereby building and learning from the successes of students and teachers who were motivated to undertake the portfolio process? This would have reduced the tremendous amount of stress the current grade 12 students, their parents, and school staff have been going through in the last two years in the mad scramble to get an unfunded, complex, and rather unfamiliar initiative off the ground. As it stands, the stress levels of school staff will be even higher in September as they try to explain to students that the portfolio is going ahead, but not quite, or even worse some schools likely will push to make it mandatory despite the announcement, with some schools tying the portfolio to the passport to education and others not. Where is the equity in this?

I could list more items...but ten is a nice round number.

Previous post on the Graduation Portfolio

Graduation Portfolio implementation misses the target

For those of you who are not familiar with the BC Graduation Portfolio. It is a newly implemented initiative that the current grade 11 students (and below) will be completing (starting next year) as they prepare to graduate. The short definition is that the Ministry of Education intends to credit students for their self directed documentation of curricular and extra curricular accomplishments that should contribute to their success beyond grade 12. My experience, despite my initial thinking that this was basically a good idea, has been very disappointing.

First of all, some schools are imposing a compulsory grade 11 portfolio course, that is not required for graduation, thereby moving away from the spirit of what the portfolio was supposed to be; self-directed.

The second issue I have is that many students were led to believe that, until very recently, they “had to” fulfill their portfolio requirements using e-portfolio; a software package for storing, tracking and grading the various portfolio components. In actuality, the e-portfolio program is not student friendly, and the portfolio can in fact be completed using any medium, including storing material in a shoe box.

The third concern is that, at the provincial level, what I originally thought the portfolio was supposed to represent—evidence of “who” the students are and how to support them in documenting their innate skills in finding a niche in this world—I came to realize was a system of micro managing the development of each student within a complex Ministry-defined blueprint for success.

And finally, grade 10 students were recently led to believe that if they did not sign up for PE 11 they would have a difficult time completing 80 hours of physical activity core requirements on their own. While not all students may be physically inclined and some may need some support to accomplish these tasks, there are several issues that are at play here. To begin with, there is the attempt to manipulate students’ behaviour with the fear of failure rather than, without bias, provide school based alternatives and personal alternatives for the students to consider. Next, there is the perceived or real conflict of interest in the trying to conscript students, without their parents’ knowledge, into school based activities.

In conclusion, a metaphor comes to mind. Have you ever seen a meat grinder?
Imagine students as the meat before going through the graduation portfolio process. After students have been forced through a directed exercise of compliance with portfolio graduation requirements that do not reflect who they are, they will indeed be ground down into someone else’s definition of success.


What started off as a good idea; the evaluation of students on all of their academic and non-academic accomplishments to help the students succeed after grade 12 is not everything that it has cracked up to be.

Perhaps I am making too much out of this, but what I find disturbing is that—with teachers, students, and parents alike currently splitting hairs on what counts, what does not count, how to count what counts, whether to double count or not, and the subtle and the not-so-subtle school politics being played out in the classroom—the original intent of the graduation portfolio as a self directed student process about the student appears to be seriously diminished.

What is certain though, in the end, is that the education system will produce through a flawed implementation of the graduation portfolio nicely packaged individuals with documented homogenized attributes ready to feed the economy.


Bon appétit!