District 203 is in the process of beginning a new grading system to make sure students learn the material they need in each class.
Standards-based grading is a system that is solely based on assessments that demonstrates your knowledge of the class contents. This new system is slowly starting in classes at Central and North.
“It’s a shift to reporting student progress based on their achievement on contents standards only,” said Assistant Principal Jackie Thornton. “Any kind of in-class work that you will be doing to practice for an assessment will not be a part of your grade.”
A reason for this shift is to help increase consistency in what is graded, and how that is. This will cause all assessments to be graded the same, and have the same weight of each assessment.
Standards-based grading started at Central about three years ago. The first year, the staff studied Central’s current grading practices, and what standards-based grading actually is. After the study, the staff was able to begin testing the system.
Central started by making sure the grading system was consistent.
According to North mathematics teacher Howard Phelan, the grading system used prior to standards-based grading never identified where a student needs to improve.
North is at the same point Central is at with beginning standards-based grading, but has more classes following the system. Phelan believes the grading system is working well for North.
“[The standards-based grading system] is great in the way it can identify areas of weaknesses and strengths within the students,” Phelan said.
The hope for this system is to shift back to the real purpose of school, which is for students to learn the material. Standards-based grading is not anticipated to be fully developed and in every class for another three years.
“[Our staff] wants to really make sure [the students] are meeting the standards for each course,” said Thornton. “We need to make sure this system will show what a student knows instead of just a snapshot. That will be the benefit.”