Friday, October 17, 2014

What if this was your district's grading policy?

The primary purpose of grading in the __________ School District is to communicate learning progress to students, educators, and parents. A secondary purpose of grading is to provide feedback to students for self-assessment and encouraging students to monitor their own learning.


Here is what we believe about grading:

1. We believe students should be allowed multiple opportunities in various ways to demonstrate their understanding of classroom learning standards. Therefore, redos and retakes will be encouraged and will be allowed after the relearn process for full credit in all content areas K-12 up until the last week of the quarter.

2. We believe a student’s grade should reflect what he/she actually knows and can demonstrate on a classroom assignment or assessment tied to specific learning standard(s). Therefore, extra credit will not be used.

3. We believe that each student learns at a different pace and we believe that ‘when’ a kid learns isn’t nearly as important as ‘if’ a kid learns. Therefore, after working with their teacher, students will not be academically penalized for turning in work on an alternate date.

 4. We believe each student must acquire certain skills to be a successful citizen, however we also believe that a grade must reflect what a student knows and can demonstrate when it comes to specific academic learning standards. Therefore, non-academic indicators such as; simple classroom participation, behavior, work completion, attendance & other non-academic indicators, will not be included in a student’s academic grade.


What if...?