Articles

The archdiocesan Office for Schools has mandated that all grade schools utilize Standards Based Grading beginning the 2019-2020 school year. Standards Based Grading is a more accurate and honest way of communicating information about what your children are expected to learn and how they are progressing along their learning path. This method allows each parent to know which concepts and skills are being studied each grading period and track how their individual child is progressing in learning those concepts and skills. Standards- based grades are more flexible and can change to reflect a student's learning. Standards based grades will fluctuate to reflect the progress a student makes in mastering one set of concepts and skills and moving on to new and more complex concepts and skills. Standards-based grading does communicate up to date information about a student's level of knowledge. Standards-based grading does show how a student's learning has progressed over time. It does not average scores from weeks past, before a student's learning progressed. It does not penalize a student for not knowing something before it is taught. This concept is already utilized in our first through third grade classes but will now extend into the remainder of the school. This will be a shift that will take some getting used to. Our Catholic high schools have spent the last two years preparing in anticipation of Catholic grade schools transitioning. We have been assured that this change will not affect high school admission processes and practices. Information sessions will be offered in the near future to assist parents in understanding this change in reporting student progress.