@QuantMech – the shredding seems to have taken place a year later. It was the sophomore Math II teacher, and she testified that it was her practice " to keep her grade books for one year after the school year ends, and then destroy them". The mediation that resulted in the agreement to review the math grades took place in July after the completion of junior year. The Math II grade (C/C+) was not changed after review.
It’s pretty obvious that the family’s primary goal was to get the grades revised prior to submission to colleges in senior year – they wanted the colleges to have a transcript with all A’s rather than the C’s in Math II and A- in Calculus. The calculus grade was revised upward to an A.
I do think its quite possible that the C in Math II was a factor that hurt the plaintiff when she was applying to colleges as a senior. From the assertions of the plaintiff, they seem to think that her inability to take Calc BC in high school was a huge factor. I’m wondering if perhaps during the gap year the student took an advanced calc course and was able to document completion of a BC level course? (No evidence one way or another – but we also don’t know what “unconditional” acceptance meant.)
The point I’ve been making is that there has already been a determination by the court. The plaintiff failed to sustain their burden of proof of anything nefarious with the grading. Maybe their ability to do so was hampered by the teacher’s routine destruction of old records – but it’s not a matter of probabilities at this point, it’s a matter of lack of proof in a case that was decided 2 years ago (July 2017).
So it’s not about being pro-Sidwell or pro-Dayo in my view – it’s a matter of accepting a decision that’s already been made and moving on. The part that I see as missing is that the student could have made up the perceived math deficiency in other ways – we do get kids and parents posting about these sorts of problems on CC, and I’ve never seen anyone advise “sue the school.” More commonly students opt to take online courses or self-study for the BC exam.
The student graduated from Sidwell in 2014, and the lawsuit was filed in December of 2015 (after the plaintiff had already completed her gap year and matriculated at Penn)