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Standards Based Grading
I know many students and parents may be concerned about the new grading model and what it means for their grade. The idea behind standards based grading is that students are graded to the same difficulty for the entire semester – that is, an essay you wrote at the beginning of the semester and at the end will be graded with the same expectations. Naturally, this means that earlier grades may be lower. That’s okay! We are going to be learning and practicing to improve our skills. Think of the current grade as showing how you would do in this class if you did the final essay and exam right now.
Because early grades don’t reflect the growth that students have shown, they will be dropped in favor of more recent assessments as the semester goes on. This means that getting a 1 in citing evidence in your first few assessments will not drag down your grade after you have improved to a 3 for a few assessments.
Finally, remember that we are not on the traditional grading scale. The numbers mean the following:
4 = Advanced Proficiency (Showing thorough understanding and completely independent)
3 = Proficiency (Showing understanding with minor mistakes or small amounts of support needed)
2 = Partial Proficiency (Showing some understanding and needs support)
1 = Not Proficient (Showing minimal understanding and needs significant support)
A score of a 2/4 is not a failing grade. The 2 is meant to denote that the student is only partially to understanding the skill being measured.
Here is a page on the DHS website about Standards Based Grading.
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