Moanalua High School SchoolWide Grading Policy

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Moanalua High SchoolSchool-Wide Grading Policy

• Moanalua High School Professional Development
  Conference
• April 2008

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Bellwork
Grading Scenarios

• Step 1 In your groups, discuss the scenario and
  decide on the grade that student should receive.
• Step 2 Reflect on this question How easy was
  it for the members of your group to agree on
  the grade given?

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Bellwork

• Please group yourselves by the color of your
  sheet.
• Your groups assignment is
• Blue - Scenario 1 Pink - Scenario 2
• Yellow - Scenario 3 Green - Scenario 4
• Purple - Scenario 5 Aqua - Scenario 6
• Red - Scenario 7 White - Scenario 8
• Orange - Scenario 9

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Outcomes

• Why do we need to change our view of grading and
  assessing students?
• How did we design and implement the policy?
• What challenges did / do we face?

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Why do we grade?

• Do we grade
• To motivate students to do well in school?
• To let students know whether they are meeting our
  expectations or not?
• To let students know where they rank in the
  class?
• Other reasons??

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Assessment legacy

• In the old days
• Winners and losers were exactly what society
  felt it needed and wanted from its schools a
  dependable rank order by the end of high school
• (Stiggins)

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Assessment legacy

• A New mission
• Society is asking schools to raise the floor of
  the rank order up to a certain level of minimum
  competence. (academic standards)
• States / schools are held accountable for helping
  all students meet them
• (Stiggins)

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• Moanalua High Schools attempt at a school-wide
  standards-based grading policy

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Year 1 Process

• Convening a Task Force (22 members)
• Membership administrators, teachers, students
  and parents
• Selection by peers
• Meetings in SY 2006-2007 4
• Reaching common understandings about SB Grading
• BOE policies related to grading
• Principles of SB grading

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Year 1 Process (continued)

• Designing a Format
• Components to include
• Working on drafts by sections
• Collecting feedback
• Refining the drafts
• Sharing with stakeholders
• Implementing school wide

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Product

• Purpose of Grading
• Purpose of Grading Policy
• Foundations of SB Grading
• Guiding Principles Teacher / Student
• Levels of Achievement
• Reporting GLOs

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Year 2 Implementation

• July 2007 Every teacher to incorporate policy
  into classroom practice
• July 2007 Anne Davies in-service on Assessment
  FOR Learning

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Year 2 Implementation

• Communicating with stakeholders
• Students--Course syllabus
• Parents--Forums, The Word
• Teacher Sharing

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Implementation Issues

• Consistency -- inconsistency of implementation
• Separating achievement and behavior
• Everything counts or only summatives count?
• Varying interpretations of Levels of
  Achievement descriptors

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Addressing the Issues

• Standards-Based Grading Resource Booklet
• Definitions
• Strategies
• FAQs
• Scenarios
• Bibliography

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And the journey continues