A, B, C… It’s easy as 1, 2, 3… 4?

A new grading system that will be based on four levels of standards will soon be implemented in the school. The “elementary” numbers that all ASFM students are familiar with, will in fact be part of the rubric used for MSHS grades on Powerschool. “We view it as a necessary change that needed a lot of thinking, research, and collaboration behind it,” Mr. Jonathan Chenier, director of said project expressed.

Teachers are rethinking the evaluation process of a person's learning abilities; their goal is to give more feedback and encourage effort in an attempt to make students worry less about getting 100 percent on everything. “We don’t want so much focus on the numbers, the most important thing should be the achievement of a skill,” Ms. Hogan explained. “From a student perspective, it should make life easier.” An effort is being made to disassociate numbers from the scale so that students don’t interpret a level 4 as a 100 or a level 1 as a 50.

The four-point scale allows teachers to give constructive criticism instead of giving a grade with no comments. “The idea is to give ongoing, consistent feedback.” Dr. Adams also added that the main purpose of this new form of evaluation was student growth. The old system averaged one’s overall grade, whereas the new procedure focuses on specific aspects of what is being taught to measure levels of understanding.