Part III Chapter 1:
General Information on Subject Grades

Grading and student assessment is an important part of teaching.  A good grading/assessment system will allow the teacher to:

  • Assess how well students are mastering material in the course, allowing a teacher to remediate and reteach as needed

  • Motivate students to do homework and study for class

  • Determine how well students have mastered course objectives and outcomes

  • Provide feedback for students and parents to monitor student progress

  • Provide data to justify grading decisions

Teachers assign the following grades that appear on report cards: Quarterly grades, and a semester final exam grade.  The semester final grade is based on average of these (see below).  In addition, in each grading period there are times when teachers issue progress reports to students and parents.  The due dates for all of these reports are included in the calendar portion of this guide.

 

Teachers are expected to draft a grading system for their classes and to communicate it clearly to students and parents.  A course policy handout, which includes the grading design, is recommended.  This can be distributed to students at the start of the class and to parents at the Fall Open House.  Some teachers have students bring these home to be signed by parents.  A useful handout will identify the purposes of grading, the major graded activities (i.e. papers, tests, quizzes, etc.)  It is also desirable to address the relative weight of various components (i.e. “typically, homework counts  xx% of a student’s quarterly grade”).

 

In designing the grading system, the teacher should incorporate features that reflect the above five purposes of grading.  Letter grades in subject areas are to be recorded in the teacher’s grade book.  Generally, a minimum of six evaluations should be recorded for each quarter.  Particularly with younger students, more graded activities are strongly recommended.  In addition, sufficient graded activities should be scheduled to provide data to meet the various grade reporting deadlines.  The teacher should also establish a turn-around time for the return of graded work.  It is not always possible to grade some work immediately, but instances when work is not returned for over a week should be rare and reserved for major papers.  As a general rule, students should not be retested on material until prior graded work on those materials has been returned.  Reviewing the questions on a test or quiz with the class is not the same as letting students see their actual work and review their actual errors.  (Obviously, a pop quiz the day before a test would be an exception to this general rule.)

 

Teachers are also encouraged to have students also keep track of their own grades.  This fosters student responsibility and understanding of the grading system.  One method is to have students record all returned graded work on the back page of their notebook.

 

Letter grades used by Bloomington High School have the following meanings:

  • A – Superior or Excellent

  • B – Very Good

  • C – Average

  • D – Poor (yet passing)

  • F – Failed

  • I/A – I/B – I/C –I/D – I/F – Incomplete with a default grade if work is not made up

  • X – Excused

  • WP – Withdrawn Passing

  • WF – Withdrawn Failing

  • T/A – T/B – T/C – T/D -T/F – Lost textbook with a default grade if text is returned

Note: Unless the appropriate assistant principal has been notified by the teacher that a longer deadline has been given, all “I” grades are converted to the default grade two weeks after the semester ends.

 

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Last Updated on August 06, 2004

Bloomington High School, Bloomington, Illinois  61701