This year, Howard County has removed interims, meaning students will no longer be given a paper copy of their grades halfway through each quarter to bring home to their families.  

Interims initial purpose was to provide a measurement of a student’s progress midway through the quarter, and give feedback to parents and families. However, as parents have become more accustomed to using Canvas, the online grading system of Howard County, which is updated continually, the interim has become an incomplete and ineffective measurement of progress.

Some Wilde Lake High School teachers, students, and staff feel that this change in tradition will encourage better habits, such as checking grades more often. Desmond Adeyemi, a ninth grade student at Wilde Lake, said, “It’s good that we don’t have interims because it helps students to be aware of their grades, and teaches them to have more responsibility.” 

“No longer having interims saves [teachers] a lot of unnecessary work,” said Wilde Lake data clerk Ms. Morgan. “Furthermore, since students and parents have a direct resource to access grades through Canvas, the change also saves money previously used for excessive amounts of paper and ink, since each year there were 5,200 pages worth of interims printed.” 

Still, some staff members have expressed concerns about how removing interims will impact student’s grades if they fail to check the available resources. Mrs. Shaw, a guidance and resource counselor at Wilde Lake, mentions, “Students may not monitor their grades [through Canvas], and not worrying about their grades when they should be.”