East Baton Rouge Parish School System

East Baton Rouge Parish School System personnel should rely more on students’ electronic records rather than paper records to validate the accuracy of grades reported to the state Department of Education, according to a report issued Monday by Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera.

The state auditor’s office conducted a “limited examination” of record-keeping after the state Department of Education issued a report critical of the system’s grade- and record-keeping practices in March.

In the report to School Superintendent Bernard Taylor, auditors said that although the system’s paper records are “in some cases, inconsistent, incomplete and/or inaccurate, it should be noted that the East Baton Rouge Parish School System’s current policies and procedures require teachers to enter student grades directly into the electronic system at the time they are earned.

“We further found the electronic records, which are maintained as part of each student’s cumulative records, to be much more complete and reliable than the paper records. As such, the electronic records, not the paper records, should be the primary source used to validate the accuracy of grades” reported to the state.

The report said the paper record-keeping of grades, registration and other data “varied greatly from school to school,” and those inconsistencies made it difficult for school administrators, regulatory bodies and auditors to locate them. Purpera’s office said the school system should establish “detailed policies and procedures” requiring all schools to maintain student academic records in a consistent manner, require periodic training for employees who deal with maintaining records, and conduct regular “compliance reviews to verify all schools are following policies and procedures.”

For online courses offered by the school system through Web-based third-party providers, the report said online providers should electronically enter the students’ grades into school files. Currently, grades from the online courses are manually entered into the system by guidance counselors. The state auditor said there were instances “where grades and/or credits were entered incorrectly, due in part to counselors’ misunderstanding the credits associated with the online courses and occasional input errors.”