Parents of elementary students will not see letter grades on report cards this year, and parents of high school students will see a different kind of letter grade, thanks to a new grading system that has been implemented for Sweet Home schools.
The new plan is an effort to address inconsistencies with the traditional grading system, in which students could appear to be doing well and yet fall short on state standardized tests.
In one example of grading last year, a student on an individualized education plan was able to achieve As, Bs and Cs in class while failing to meet the state standards in reading and math.
The new grading system will address that, providing better information to parents in relation to their student’s performance in context of the state standards, which they must meet to graduate from high school.
At the heart of the new grading system for elementary students is a number, ratings from one through four. One is the lowest score possible, and a four is the highest. Three and four reflect a student who is meeting or exceeding the standard.
The grades will be applied to each subject as well as sub-categories, areas underneath each subject, for example, an ability to determine the theme of a story by summarizing the text in language arts.
The high school will continue to use letter grades. Some 75 percent of the final letter grade for a course will be tied directly to a student’s progress in relation to state standards, while 25 percent will focus on behavior factors, such as meeting homework deadlines.
The Junior High system will probably look like last year’s, said Curriculum Director Tim Porter.
In addition to numbers, schools may have individual approaches to reporting grades.
At Hawthorne, parents will encounter three color-coded zones of achievement depicted in an inverted pyramid.
Ideally, 80 percent will be on track to meet the standard and fall into the green category, said Principal Terry Augustadt, and only 15 percent will fall into the yellow zone and 5 percent into the red zone.
Those color codes will be delivered to parents in six different areas, Augustadt said. During parent-teacher conferences, they can focus on the areas in yellow or red and talk about what students and parents can do to improve their performance.
Hawthorne is trying to create a simple system for reporting to parents, based on the detailed report, he said. At conferences, it will provide an “at-a-glance” overview of their children’s performance, something that communicates a lot of information quickly and easily during a 20-minute parent-teacher conference.
The new reporting system will help schools and parents get around a calibration disconnect between the traditional kind of grading and the state assessment test, Augustadt said. The goal is “we are all aiming at the same target.”
Based on last year’s test scores, Hawthorne has a few too many students in the yellow zone, Augustadt said, and his school is devoted to getting 80 percent of its students into the green zone, which means they’re on track to meet or exceed the state standards.
“Hawthorne has taken on the challenge as well as the district,” Augustadt said. “We’re looking at the state and national standards. We’re going to raise our students to jump across that bar. We’re willing to hit the highest bar. I’m excited about the changes and how my staff has embraced it.”
The new system comes as the result of House Bill 2220, Porter said.
The requirements outlined by the Oregon Department of Education have changed in communications from the agency between July and September.
The district is meeting the earlier requirements, Porter said. The bill itself requires that districts report student assessment performance directly to parents at least once per year.
In the past, grades have been based on tests, quizzes, homework, labs and similar activities, Porter said. The totality of the point values gave the final grade in a class. This includes behavioral factors, personal management factors, such as turning homework in on time.
Now, administrators and teachers will base grades on how students are doing based on grade-level standards, he said. “That is something different from what we considered a report card in the past.”
It’s also confusing to some people, Porter said. At this point, the high school will continue to use letters, but they will be calculated differently.
The central idea is that behavior should not be included in the grade, Porter said. A student who turns in homework late may have completed it perfectly, but it’s late. That tardiness cannot be used to calculate the student’s grades.
“We’re kind of going with what they want implemented,” Porter said. “We’re basing academic grades on academics only.”
In the new system, that’s 75 percent of the overall letter grade, he said, and 25 percent of the letter grade will reflect personal management, retaining some level of grading based on behavioral factors.
The grading software is undergoing changes through the Linn-Benton-Lincoln Education Service District right now, Porter said. District officials are hoping that the ESD can develop three separate grades for the high school, reporting a grade in each, academics, personal management and overall. The overall grade will provide the traditional letter.
Whether academics and personal management is a letter or a number is still in debate at the high school, Porter said. “Met” or “Not Met” is the most popular solution among the staff.
The elementary schools have been on a standards-based system already, Porter said, although a student could get a passing grade in class while not meeting the standard.
“That’s why this law came into effect,” Porter said. Districts and parents need an accurate report of where a student is academically.
“I personally like it,” Porter said. “I think a student’s grade should be based on their academic knowledge. I think part of what initially happened with this law, we went to a system where the only thing important was academics.”
And that’s a weakness.
If schools don’t report something, it loses its value, Porter said.
Schools also turn students into good citizens, who know how to get to work on time and learn responsibility, he said. An employee who shows up late every day probably won’t be working a job for long. Deadlines are part of life in many areas, such as paying taxes or filing for financial aid.
The IRS and FAFSA don’t care that people understand how to do it, Porter said. They care that people actually do it.
District officials are trying to emphasize the academic reporting but also include the important personal management component, he said. Students should be evaluated on their academic performance, but “I also think students have to learn things in our world are bound by time. I think this system does a better job of reporting on both of these aspects. I think the bottom line is it does give better information to parents about how their student is doing academically.”
Porter noted that on the one-to-four scale, all students should be at a one at the beginning of the year. By the end of the year, students should be reaching three and four. If a student starts out at a four, that student should be in the next grade, because that student has already met the grade-level standard.