In 2014,  Baltimore County Public Schools established a “Grading and Reporting Committee” comprised of teachers and parents in order to revise Policy 5210 (Factors involved in Student Evaluation). The goal of the Grading and Reporting committee was to revise existing policy to reflect successful research-based practices and to strengthen the correlation between student grades and achievement.

At the start of the 2016-2017 school year, a hot topic among teachers and students was the new grading policy. Misunderstandings about the new grading policy were swirling around the student body – many students believed that they would no longer receive homework while others believed that their grades would only be reflected by their performance on tests and quizzes.

The newly revised grading policy is designed to ensure that grades reflect a student’s mastery of a learning standard via a body of evidence. Projects, individual classwork assignments, and quizzes are just a few examples of a how student can demonstrate their mastery of a learning standard. In addition, students are now allowed to re-do assignments at the discretion of the teacher. This allows students to demonstrate improvement of a particular learning standard.

With all these changes to the grading policy, teachers at Towson high school have their own opinions regarding the new policy. AP psychology teacher Mr. Olson has taken a liking to the new policy. “I like it. It allows students to demonstrate mastery of the content while classwork and homework give students the opportunity to practice comfortably.”

Other Towson teachers are still uneasy about particular aspects of the policy. Ms. Nash, a veteran teacher says, “It’s a big change in the way teachers grade students. I’ve never seen anything like it in my twenty years of teaching.” Mr. Ridgley says that grading policy “has good intentions in theory” and is interested to see its impact on students and teachers.

The most important thing to take away from this newly enacted policy is that its intent is to promote student learning and mastery. It’s important to pay attention to how the allocation of grades will differ from grades under the previous policy as we get further into the school year. Will the new policy promote student learning, or will it discourage students from completing assignments that fall under the “non-graded” section?