Standards-Based Grading focuses on what students are learning instead of what they are doing. Traditionally, grades have been focused on what students do, how well they behave, their attendance, their effort, and how well they conform; only some focus is on what they learn. Extensive research supports Standards-Based Grading as a best practice in support of student learning.

HHS Grading Core Beliefs 

Hortonville High School commits to all stakeholders to provide fair, accurate, specific, and timely information regarding student progress toward common essential standards as well as feedback for next steps and growth areas. Grades communicate what students know and are able to do.

Grades must communicate what students know and are able to do.

Grades must be deliberately connected to the learning to provide valuable feedback regarding students’ academic strengths and weaknesses; if not, they are counterproductive. Meaningful grade components must be rooted in essential learning and separate from nonacademic factors to ensure that we are assessing true learning. Grades are a communication tool rather than a collection of points. Learning targets clearly state what teachers expect students to know and do.

Grades are based on clearly established criteria determined by content teams.

Within each Professional Learning Community, teachers are expected to identify essential standards from their content area and deconstruct them to produce student-friendly learning targets. Students should know and be able to demonstrate proficiency of each learning target by the end of each grading period. Specific criteria for understanding or performance is provided to students prior to assessments. Rubrics include evaluative criteria, quality definitions for those criteria at levels of achievement (proficiency scales), and a scoring strategy that teachers and students use to evaluate their performance or understanding.

Academic achievement is reported separately from behaviors.

If we incorporate behavior, attendance, and effort into the grade, we no longer consider grades accurate indicators of mastery of standards. The grade should reflect what the student knows and is able to do (Wormeli, 2006). Measuring behavior does not reflect what the student knows and is able to do academically. We can provide anecdotal evidence of behavioral performance, such as amount of time and resources students spend on a task; however, we do not have a commonly accepted, legally justifiable, non-subjective method for measuring how hard or sincerely someone is working. The inclusion of positive behaviors can artificially inflate grades while the inclusion of negative behaviors can decrease academic motivation. While curriculum guides suggest a standard pacing for instruction, penalizing a student for requiring more time, support, or resources to master a standard is contrary to differentiation and best practice in teaching and learning. Please note, there may be standards where participation or quality of work may be assessed. This is appropriate only if it is reflected within the actual standard/learning target being assessed.

Grades are equitable.

Teachers work in conjunction with their Professional Learning Community (PLC) to understand the essential standards, proficiency scales, rubrics, and assessments. They ensure they have identified the essential standards and what the learning targets are that support them. A learning target is a day-to-day instructional goal that builds toward a final learning outcome. Upfront, the teachers understand which collaboratively designed assessments will be used to assess learning. The teacher provides the students with the proficiency scales, the learning targets for each unit/essential standard, and specific rubrics that are aligned to them. Daily learning targets are posted clearly in the classroom so that students understand the goal they are working toward. The teacher then teaches relevant content, skills, and concepts related to the learning target(s), drawing from a variety of instructional strategies and frequently checking for understanding with formative assessment tools. Students are then responsible for providing evidence of learning. The teacher gathers a full body of evidence for individual students to gain a summative assessment of their proficiency. Teachers regularly share student work with their PLC teammates and ask them to score the work against the scale, so they can continue to calibrate their scoring. The teacher then scores their own students’ assessments and offers specific feedback to students so that they know the next steps to take to demonstrate their learning further as needed. Teachers follow data analysis protocol to make instructional adjustments to better serve students in their learning. Teachers continue to teach, adjusting their methods, differentiating as needed allowing students to offer more evidence on various targets as they continue to learn. Some students continue to relearn and show evidence of new understanding based upon teacher feedback. With standards-based grading, the teacher and the student have entered into a partnership in the learning. As a result of coaching from their teachers, students learn to keep track of their progress on learning. Students must understand their role and responsibility for their learning in this student-centered classroom.

Hortonville High School commits to all stakeholders to provide fair, accurate, specific, and timely information regarding student progress toward common essential standards as well as feedback for next steps and growth areas. Grades communicate what students know and are able to do.

Grading Practices

A consistent 4-point proficiency scale is used

• 0: No Evidence
  • Student did not provide enough evidence of learning. Student must be reengaged in the learning process.
• 1: Beginning
  • Student provided simplistic evidence of learning with many errors and/or omissions
• 2: Approaching
  • Student provided simplistic evidence of learning with some errors and/or omissions
• 3: Proficient
  • Student independently provided both simple and complex evidence of learning with accuracy
• 4: Exceeds Expectations
  • Student independently provided evidence of accurate learning, in-depth inferences, and interactions with concepts in ways that exceed what was taught. 

Proficiency is based on a body of evidence

A Body of Evidence is defined as a collection of artifacts that measure student learning. No Evidence is reserved for cases where there is no evidence at all for a learning target, such as when a student stops coming to school or does not submit appropriate evidence of learning for a target.

Assessments that could be used to determine students’ achievement of learning targets include but are not limited to the following:

• Projects
• Formative assessments
• PLC/collaboratively developed tasks
• Performances
• Presentations
• Summative assessments

All scores assigned to student work should be defensible and credible through a body of evidence. The body of evidence collected will convert to a final letter grade using the most appropriate grade calculation method, which is determined by PLC teams for individual courses.

• Decaying Average
  • This Standards-Based Grading calculation puts the weight on the most recent score.
  • Skyward will post the last event score as the learning target score.
  • This option is best when teachers want to place emphasis on a student’s final display of understanding.
  • Scores can be overridden at teacher discretion.
• Average
  • This Standards-Based Grading calculation averages all events in a learning target.
  • This option is best when teachers want to place emphasis on the whole body of evidence (many events) versus only the last attempt
  • Scores can be overridden at teacher discretion.
• Mobility
  • When a student transfers from outside the district, we will accomplish the following
    • Honor the work of students transferring into our classrooms
    • Provide grades for targets that have been taught and assessed in the classroom.
    • Communicate grades that are fair to the students, that accurately represent learning, and that maintain the integrity of grading practices.

Proficiency is organized and reported by learning target

Grade conversion

• A Range
  • All 3s and 4s (no score of 2 or below)
• B Range
  • 2.67 to 2.99 average with no score of 1 in any learning target
• C Range
  • 2.33-2.66 average with no score of 1 in any learning target
• D Range
  • 2.02-2.32 average with no score of 1 in any learning target
• F
  • A score of 1 in any learning target

Extra Credit

In standards-based grading, extra credit does not exist. Extra credit distorts a grade. If students want to show they have improved in their demonstration of understanding, they are provided opportunities to do so within the parameters of set deadlines. Additional points/credit will not be given simply for putting in more time or work because semester grades reflect learning rather than a gathering of points. 

Role of Semester Finals

Every course will have a meaningful learning opportunity during the final exam period. Students are required to attend for the entire period. Finals will be utilized to determine a holistic performance of course learning targets. Performance on the final may result in a +/- at teacher discretion, or the grade may remain the same. 

Communication with parents/guardians

If a student is currently failing or has not submitted appropriate evidence of learning, the teacher will contact the parents upon teacher concern.

Exceptions

SBG practices do not apply to dual-credit classes with grading systems that are dictated by post-secondary institutions.

Students will have multiple opportunities to demonstrate proficiency, which may include reassessment.

When appropriate, teachers will allow students the opportunity to redo, refine, or reassess to demonstrate proficiency and show retention of the learning target. To be afforded this opportunity, students must show new evidence of learning through a relearning experience. Each department/PLC will follow a common, consistent reassessment policy that will be clearly explained in each course syllabus. Teachers will clearly communicate reassessment deadlines.

Understanding Standards Based Grading in Skyward

The following information will help you understand the processes for using Skyward. If you would like additional support in understanding how to view student performance in Skyward contact the 8course instructor or a member of the High School Administration Team for assistance.

Learning Targets are developed based on the Essential Standards determined by each Professional Learning Community (the team of instructors that teach the course). All learning targets that will be assessed within a course are preloaded into Skyward prior to the first day of each semester.

Events are a series of assessment attempts (measurements) used to determine the proficiency level of each learning target.

Grades are calculated based on the grade calculation formula that the Professional Learning Community has selected prior to the start of the semester (Decaying Average or Average). This formula is uniform for all students enrolled in a course and is communicated for students/parents/guardians in every course syllabus.