Woodson Parent's Guide for Grading and Reporting Brochure

 

Grading Philosophy

At W.T. Woodson High School, grades will reflect the level of mastery of essential knowledge and skills, measured using a variety of modalities, with multiple opportunities to demonstrate understanding.  Collaborative Teams (or teachers of like subjects) are responsible for determining what a grade reflects. Collaborative teams will be given the flexibility to assign different academic weights to different learning tasks and assessments based on their unique student population and content area. 

Grading Expectations

All teachers will:

• Use a weighted graded system to determine quarter grades.
• Keep an up-to-date gradebook and record at a minimum of 9 grades over the course of the quarter.
• Grade assignments and post grades to the electronic gradebook within seven school days after the due date with the understanding that major projects/papers may require additional time to ensure quality feedback.  
• For major assessments, provide at least one new opportunity to demonstrate proficiency who scored below an 80% after the student completes a corrective action determined by the collaborative team.
• Set reasonable guidelines for turning in late work to document learning/mastery.
• Set weighted grades so that homework will not count for more than 10% of a student’s quarter grade and so that no one assignment/assessment counts for more than 30% of a student’s quarter grade.
• Communicate with parents every 2 weeks when a student is failing the course.

Grading Descriptors 

A A-	Designates the status of a student who consistently demonstrates accurate and complete knowledge of content and skills specified in the FCPS Program of Studies (POS) and applies that knowledge to solve problems in a variety of settings.
B+ B B-	Designates the status of a student who demonstrates knowledge of content and skills specified in the FCPS POS, with some improvement needed in accuracy and/or consistency in performance, applying that knowledge to solve problems in a variety of settings.
C+ C C-	Designates the status of a student who demonstrates knowledge of basic content and skills specified in the FCPS POS, but requires additional practice and instructional experiences to acquire skills necessary to solve problems.
D+ D	Designates the status of a student who needs significant practice and instructional experiences to acquire the knowledge of basic content and skills specified in the FCPS POS necessary to solve problems. As a final mark, it is not necessarily sufficient to meet the prerequisite requirements
F	Designates the status of a student who has not demonstrated the basic knowledge of content and/or skills specified in the FCPS POS and requires additional practice and instructional experiences in order to succeed.

Collaborative Teams Expectations

Collaborative Teams will:

• Have the same weighted grading system as their colleagues within the same CT.
• Collaborate with team members to determine projects / major assignments.
• Give common major assessments.
• Determine if a midterm will be given and communicate that to students via the syllabus.
• Create formative assessments that can be used to quickly and accurately measure mastery of standards
• Have common syllabi to include common grading policies to include: late work, retests, and extra credit.

How are weighted grades determined?

In a weighted system, each type of assessment is assigned a percentage of the quarter grade. For example, FCPS policy dictates that homework cannot be more than 10% of the quarter grade. If homework is 10% the remaining assessment areas‐ whatever they might be called‐ make up 90% of the grade. 

By using a weighted system, the value of each assessment type never changes.   The value of each assignment, within its group, will change when an assignment is added. For example, if tests are 30% and two tests of equal value are given each test would be 15% of the overall quarter grade. If a third test of equal value was added, then each of the tests would be 10% of the overall grade…but tests are never more than 30% of the overall grade, in this example.

Note: Until there is an assignment in each category the percentages will adjust proportionally to add up to 100%. This is important to remember early in a quarter when few assignments have been graded.

Gradebook Comments

To Make Up (TMU): will be recorded if a student has work to make up. A “0” will serve as a temporary placeholder until the work is submitted or the deadline has passed.  Parents are encouraged to monitor progress reports to ensure that all make up work has been submitted prior to assigned deadlines.

Not Turned In (NTI):  After the late work deadline the TMU code will change to NTI.  This code will be used when a student has not turned in an assignment after being given reasonable guidelines in which to complete the work.  A “0” will be assigned with this code. This will be used to communicate with parents a pattern of work not being turned in.

Excused Assignment (EA):  When a teacher has decided to excuse an assignment, the EA code will be used to show that an assignment does not count towards calculating your child’s quarter grade. This code will not be assigned a value. 

Work Completion Policy

We expect all students will complete all of their work 100% of the time.  Teachers expect students to complete and turn in assignments even if they are late.  W.T. Woodson High School uses a system of interventions to assist students if completing school work becomes a problem.  Patterns of late work will be reported to parents through ParentVue.

Common Course Syllabus

In addition to common grading policy, Collaborative Teams will also provide parents and students with a common syllabus.  In the common course syllabus, teachers will address the following; course description, course objectives, SIS comment codes, grading scales, grading calculations, retake policies, late and makeup work policies, extra credit and the honor code.

SIS ParentVue

• The SIS Parent Account is Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) secure solution for accessing information about your child’s attendance, class performance, demographic data and course materials. The SIS Parent Account allows students and parents to view student’s grades.  Once teachers have recorded the grades they will be visible.  If there are questions, the parents should discuss the grades with their children for clarification.  The expectation is that the student will communicate with both parent and teacher and provide a communication pathway between both.teacher and provide a communication pathway between both. Please be mindful that if a student is absent or missing work that the place holder of a “0” will cause a drop in grades but will change once the assignment has been turned in and graded. Grades can fluctuate based on the number assignments in particular category.

• Please note that the calendar on the SIS Parent Account does not reflect the teacher’s calendar for the class.  Continue to consult FCPS 24/7 Blackboard to view the class calendars, announcements, current assignments, and the teachers’ grading policies found in the syllabi. SIS Parent provides another conduit for communication to and from your child’s school.

SIS StudentVue

• The SIS Student Account is Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) secure solution for accessing information about student attendance, class performance, demographic data and course materials. This allows students to see the most current data as it appears in our system of record.

  Students will be able to log into their StudentVue Account at:  https://sisstudent.fcps.edu/SVUE.  We recommend bookmarking this page.

Weekly Grade Updates

• ParentVue will be sending out weekly grading updates.  These updates are a snapshot of your child’s grade at that moment and time.  The information will be presented in an interim/report card format.  To get detailed information on the overall grade you will need to login into ParentVue. These updates will start mid to late September.