Grading Committee Report

May 14, 2015

Purposes of Grading

We believe the purposes of grades are to:

Communicate achievement status of students to parents and others

Provide information that students can use for self-evaluation Evaluate the effectiveness of instructional programs Use for instructional purposes – clarify learning goals,

indicate students’ strengths & weaknesses, provide information about students’ personal/social development, and for some students, contribute to motivation

Additional Uses of Grades

to determine promotion, graduation, and athletic eligibility

to award honors to report to other schools and prospective

employers to inform college acceptance, scholarships and

vocational plans

Guiding Principles

Grades represent what students know, understand, and can do.

Grading procedures allow students to recover from initial failure, e.g. non-graded formative assessments, re-testing (the highest of the grades is counted).

Grading procedures minimize the impact of late assignments, homework, behaviors, work habits, effort, attitude, etc.

Grades make mathematical sense. Grading is defensible and credible.

Required changes

1. All middle and high schools will use the 10-point grading scale:

90-100 A

80-89B

70-79C

60-69D

<60 F

2. PLCs, grade levels and/or departments must agree on and use

the same grading procedures.

3. GPA Calculation change (HS only)

Optional

Standards-based grading (with conversion to 100 pt. scale for Power School purposes)

WebsiteBig Buckets

Homework

Standards Based Grading

Zeros

Model Grading Systems

For each bucket Introduction

Research

Best Practice

Resources

Rubric for Evaluating Teacher Policies/Procedures

Examples

High School Quality Points