Grades

This week, I was part of a two day professional development conference over grades at my school. It was eye opening. One of the reasons that the conference took place was over accusations from outside sources that there had been grade inflation at some of the local private schools. This sparked a necessary (in my opinion) conversation with our faculty regarding the overarching question: What are grades at this school? For state standards, this may be fairly straight forward. However, because this school does not need to follow any specific guidelines for curriculum, this is a much trickier question. In my group, we looked at the overall system first and figured out quickly that grades are there to represent mastery. We also have an effort grade system per semester to recognize the students that may not do well on summative assessments but have put efforts into pursing the best of their abilities. This is interesting because the effort grades do not show up on official transcripts.
One of the more frustrating aspects of the grading aspect in our school are our grade books. While we have a grade book system integrated into our LMS, there is no option for the students to track their grades. It is a closed grade book. Because of this, as well as a lack of requirement for a specific grade book, some teachers use other programs such as Haiku or Engrade online to allow students to track their own grades. There are arguments on either side of the open/closed grade book issue. For closed grade books, some teachers would like students to have a conversation with them if they would like to know their own grade. This is a great strategy for some students, as it increases the ability of the student's communication with a teacher. On the other hand, there are some student that are not doing well in a class and will not inquire about grades, allowing them to "slip through the cracks". For open grade books, it allows the student to keep track of their own work in terms of grades, tardiness on assignments and assessment averages. It also allows for parents to see their child's grades. This can be a blessing or a curse. Some parents have been know to inquire about every assignment that is below what they consider an acceptable grade for their child (sometimes this is as high as an A-). This obviously creates much more work for teachers, especially since the student should be the one asking about how to improve their own grades.
As one can imagine, this is a complex issue, and one among many. However, I am excited that this is a conversation that we as a faculty are having. I am actually looking forward to our next professional development opportunity at school!