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GRADING POLICY

Implementing a School-Wide Grading Policy

Jillian Konsor
EdLd 672 Policy and Administration
MNSU

GRADING POLICY
Implementing a School-Wide Grading Policy

For more than a decade the middle school at which I work has received copious amounts
of feedback concerning the difficult transition of elementary school students into sixth grade and
beyond. Students and their adults have cited the multitude of teachers, each with his/her own set
of classroom policies as one of the greatest sources of stress and confusion. This stress and
confusion is further thought to be negatively impacting student academic performance.
In the summer of 2014 the leadership team at the middle school began meeting to discuss
a solution to this situation. It was decided that a school-wide grading policy would be
implemented across the middle school starting this school year. Late work was now to be
accepted at anytime during the trimester and students were to be given the opportunity to retake
assessments on which they had done poorly. Staff was informed of this change at back to school
workshops in August.
Through feedback from staff at this meeting, it was quickly ascertained that additional
conversations were needed to clarify and unify the staffs interpretations of this decision. Staff
members quickly began to form their own ideas of what was meant by this policy change and
how they were going to implement these changes in their classrooms. Several staff members met
with the principal to seek further clarification and another leadership team meeting was called to
handle these concerns. Non-leadership staff was invited to this meeting to participate and share
in the process. As a group it was decided that:
-

Late work is accepted up to the week before the end of the trimester for not
more than a 10% penalty of what a student would have originally earned.

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Students are allowed the opportunity to correct or retake all formative

assessments, at least once, for up to 100% of the total grade by end of grading

period.
Students are allowed the opportunity to correct or retake all summative
assessments, at least once, for up to 80% of the total grade by end of grading
period.

The decision as to what is considered formative versus summative assessments and the number
of opportunities given to a student to retake/correct an assessment is at the discretion of the
teacher or department.
Reviews from staff have been mixed. At a recent staff meeting many teachers were in
support of the change in that they feel it has encouraged students to keep working, fix their
mistakes and build on the skills and concepts we want them to learn. Teachers also like that they
still have some autonomy in the matter by being able to adapt the new grading policy to fit the
needs of their subject matter. The two major concerns brought forward at the meeting are: 1creating a culture of students who do not feel an urgency to study/prepare for exams, and 2certain teachers, specifically those with a higher volume of assignments or assessments, are
feeling overwhelmed with the additional amount of grading. Based on the overall feedback, and
the consistency the new policy has brought to the building, the current principal plans to make
the policy a springboard for additional conversations not only about grading but also about best
practice in homework and assessments (J. Wendel, personal communication, December 1, 2014).

As an educational leader, I would work to continue moving the school forward in

developing a best-practice, research-based plan for grading and reporting. In a February 2008

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article written for Educational Leadership, Douglas B. Reeves outlines four steps for school
leaders to affect a successful grading policy change. They are:
1- Create a sense of urgency amongst teachers. Explore the impact of inconsistent
and ineffective grading policies on students.
2- Identify teacher leaders in this area and provide them the opportunity to share
their insights and experiences with others.
3- Gather evidence to create a solid defense for whatever decision is made.
4- Communicate clearly to parents, students, teachers and other stakeholders of
exactly what will and will not change (Reeves, 2008, p. 87).
Since the staff has already committed to a basic plan to improve the consistency between
teachers I would go back to step one to begin exploring the cost of ineffective grading policies
like the use of zeros and the averaging of grades (Reeves, 2008, p. 85). The intent of these
conversations would be to implement additional changes over time. Teachers who have been
utilizing these methods and have seen success could become mentors for other staff and be part
of the forum to communicate manageable and effective methods out to others. I would also
compare the grades of the current 7th and 8th graders to their grades at this time last year to see if
there have been improvements in passing rates. If the data indicated improvement I would add
that to the evidence being gathered for step three. If no improvement has been shown, problemsolving conversations about why would need to begin. As the policy matures and our
conversations continue, we will need to continue communicating the changes, and the rationale
for these changes out to others via newsletters, announcements, changes to the handbook, and/or
a grading policy document located on the school website.
In the book Policy Analysis for Educational Leaders: A step-by-step approach, the author
outlines ten steps as imperatives to policy analysis. In this scenario I would focus on the last

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three: implementing the solution, monitoring outputs, and evaluating outcomes (Alexander,
2013, p. 43-44). As best practices are discussed, evidence gathered and changes to the grading
policy continue to be made I would want to make sure that the expectations, responsibilities and
timelines of the of the policy are clear not only to the staff, but to students and parents. Staff
meetings, advisor-led student meetings and the use of an electronic document on the school
website would be used to frequently communicate this information out to others. This act would
not only assist in maintaining consistency among staff but to frequently bring the information
back into the minds of parents and students as we work to create this new learning culture. As a
way to check for compliance, but also to celebrate success, teachers would be encouraged to
share examples of student growth through retakes and/or corrections at staff meetings.
Monitoring outputs would require me to continue tracking the grades of the current 7th
and 8th graders over the course of the school year and into the next. I, or the data team, would
look at grade averages and/or failure reports as a whole but also sort the grade report trends by
ethnicity to see how the policy is impacting specific groups of students. This could be done at
the end of each trimester when grades are reported. This evidence will be used as a formative
evaluation of the policy change and will be put back into conversations as motivation to continue
the work being done, or, to drive additional conversations about change.
Evaluating outcomes will require the use of the evidence collected once per trimester
over the course of this school year and the next. Conversations with stakeholders over this time
frame will be necessary to gain insight into possible flaws of my data collection and/or whether
or not additional evidence will be required. To make sure people believe my summative
assessment, my data will need to show whether or not the grading changes brought consistency
and unity to the middle school and improved student performance.

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References

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Alexander, N. A. (2013). Policy analysis for educational leaders: A step-by-step approach.
Boston, MA: Pearson.
Reeves, D. B. (2008, February). Teaching Students to Think. Educational Leadership,65(5), p.
85-87. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/Default.aspx