At the bottom of this document the school spells out its grade's policy : failing students should obtain grades of 50 or 55 (out of 100). Compare these numbers to 65, the minimum passing grade for the New York state high schools standardized examinations (Regents Exams). As you can see, teachers are instructed to give 45 to the no-shows, practice denounced by the Chancellor after it was publicized by the New York Post (3/28/05).

My experience with the practice dated back to June 2003, when a failing senior proudly exhibited her report card, and thanked me for passing her, which was not true. I don't pass students : their grades do, unless the principal subverted the process, something Wiltshire is adept at : he submitted his grades for my statistics class to the programming office, arguing that, as the "official" teacher of the class (I replaced him from March 18 for the rest of the semester!), it was legitimate. So much so, students and parents take passing grades for granted, and vilified teachers who would not cave in. Teachers are under siege come report cards season -- by parents invisible otherwise.
2003 Summer session reinforced this experience. Theoretically, the session allows students to improve their academic skills for the next school year, and gives a second chance to those who need a few credits to graduate. However, studies show that the session is a waste of resources, the main reasons being
1) the administration's incompetence :
Documented here : weeks spent assigning students to the right classes and attendance sheets hardly reflecting live counts of students, makes summer statistics a farce :little learning takes place as a result of student nomadism among classes throughout the session.
2) discipline :
check out this sample of referrals to understand the magnitude of the problem.

The following letter from Yvonne Adonai further underscores how Wiltshire and his assistants have an unduly control over grades :

Note the dates : a simple quiz grade given on July 21, was being questioned, three weeks later (8/7/03), by a supervisor ! To this date I don't know who the student was (never met with me to complain). Why the parent, instead of meeting with the teacher, waited two weeks for Adonai to come back ? For a simple reason : she knew the failing grade would be changed to a passing one over the teacher's objection. Why would an AP undermine students' evaluation process in such a brazen manner ? Most likely, to satisfy the patronage system she is indebted to. NYC education is hostage to half-illiterate supervisors reduced to miserable pawns in a political game. Do not expect such corrupt and disfunctional environment to produce quality education.

It was the last days of the summer session. I was preparing my students for the three final examinations, already printed-out. That's when I was removed from the classroom for...corporal punishment/verbal abuse : according to Adonai, I allegedly said to students (I still don't know whom) that their mothers should have aborted them ! The move became clear to me ; I learned later that she threw away my exams and administered easier ones to preempt potential frictions with parents : many students were seniors whose graduation was at stake, and yet, regrettably, they came in summer school with the they-don't-fail-people-in-summer mental disposition. As a result, most did little work.

In Fall 2004, sent back to school from the rubber room at Staten Island Regional Operations Center, where I was arbitrarily "detained", despite absence of allegations or charges against me ! (I was not alone : reassigned staff members with no pending disciplinary cases abound in the rubber room.A far cry from the DOE painting reassigned teachers as child molesters.)

The grade scam went on unabated, so did the harassment : on December 7, I was removed from classroom for yet another "corporal punishment/verbal abuse ": the low lives did it again.This was right after the second marking period of the first semester : I handed my grades over. From the teacher reassigned center , I sent Adonai this fax regarding the grades. They did not respond to it for good reason.

The bottom line is that Wiltshire tampered with grades to artificially increase graduation rate, and he has an incentive to do so more than ever : as principal of a so-called empowerment school, while he enjoys a great control over our school -- budget is not the least --, he knows that pink slip is awaiting him should his performance fail to meet the DOE's standards.