UNDERSTANDING CCSD'S NEW GRADING GUIDELINES
What Counts? What Matters?
By Kaylen Ramirez, Dayana Romero
and Jocelyn Rubio Guerrero
As COVID hit Nevada many things started changing in the school system. Most of us didn’t even know about these upcoming changes until teachers and students went to in person school again. It states in an article called, “Student, mask policy, grading system hot topics during CCSD board meeting” that they took up a possible grading policy which then lead to votes coming out to 5-1 in favor of the new policy.
Now in the new grading system students could not get a grade below 50%, therefore, F’s would be 50-59%. Anything below 50% would be considered “grade W”. The W stands for “working on standards below level.” Also another thing about the grading system that had changed is that now formative assignments wouldn’t count for a grade only summative assignments would count. Basically, all of your grades would be out into your summative assessments and final semester exams.
Grading system 1-12:
A = 90-100
B = 80-89
C = 70-79
D = 60-69
F = 50-59
When the first day of school came around teachers explained to students the new grading system. As you may expect many people were confused and also disliked the idea of a new grading system. Since so many students and teachers had different opinions on the topic we decided to ask students and teachers from a magnet school called, “East Career Technical Academy” on whether they disagree or agree with the policy and if this is affecting them in any way.
Kaylen Ramirez
We as a group decided to conduct a study on teachers and students about this new system set in place. With careful planning about how to word our questions, comments and statements, the responses we received were astonishing.
When looking at our stats in teachers it’s visible that the popular vote was unanimous in agreement towards the change. While on the other hand the popular vote amongst my peers was against the new change. Many of the students and I quote said, “It puts more pressure on doing good on summative assessments.” As you can see, most students feel as though they have to do good on summative assessments rather than formative. Another student, Cesar, a freshman, states, “I find the new grading system very frustrating because all the homework I do and extra work I do doesn’t count for anything.” The homework as in the formative assignments don’t count as a grade so it diminishes some students' will to even do the homework in the first place. On the other hand, there is still a good portion of students who do like the grading system. District wide East Tech has made one of the most drastic changes affecting staff.
In conclusion, when looking at the effects the new grading policy has made on students and teachers are unanticipated. Students tend to find the new policy bother some because they believe they aren’t getting credited for all their work. Although, some students say that the new grading policy is better because they don’t get as much homework. Teachers on the other hand believe this is a positive change towards everyone. In all, the grading policy can have positive and negative effects depending on the person.
CCSD'S NEW GRADING POLICIES
How Can I Be Failing?
By Amaiya M. Nava-Ganigan, Diana Arizmendi and Sarah Daniel Anderson
This is a question many CCSD students are asking themselves. It’s only the 10th week of school and many students in Las Vegas are failing their classes. Before we take a deep dive into the New Grading Policy, let's bring it back to the beginning where it all started. CCSD’s New Grading Policy was put into effect August 2021 and was to be carried out for the rest of the school year. It allows students to retake tests, behavior will not have an impact on grades either, and summative assignments will only count towards the final grade unlike summative assignments. Was this the right time to introduce the new policy? How will this affect students after coming back from online school?
To get to the bottom of these questions, we decided to interview students and teachers here at East Tech. We asked a series of questions: “How has the new grading grading policy affected you?”,” What’s your opinion on it?”, and “What’s something you would change about it?”. Surprisingly, the responses varied from one end of the spectrum to the other. About 60% of students that were interviewed have stated that the new grading policy has helped them tremendously. An anonymous 11th grader has stated,” It has helped me and now I can focus on the assignments that are more important to me.” This statement has caused us to wonder if students will “slack-off” and not complete work that requires them to fully learn the material taught in class.
Since students can now only pass solely on acing a test, is it even fair to students who complete classwork? An anonymous sophomore has stated,” It’s unfair that you do all the formative assignments and it doesn’t count.” Only 40% of students have a problem with the new grading system, but 40% is still too many to be struggling. Majority of teachers are also having difficulty with the new policy. It is believed that it was introduced too quickly and not at the right time. With students coming back to in-person classes after being online for over a year, it was already a lot to handle.Now since the new grading system has been introduced,it has added even more to our plate.
All in all, CCSD’s New Grading Policy has very mixed reviews amongst teachers and students. Even though over half the students interviewed are having positive experiences with it, there are still so many negatives to it and many students are having a hard time. Was this the right time to introduce such a new concept of grading? Will this help students rather than hurt them? We still have so many questions to be answered and research to be done.