Grading Policy

Frenship ISD

Secondary Grading Guidelines

According to EIA (local), the Superintendent or designee shall ensure that each campus or instructional level develops guidelines for teachers to follow in determining grades for students. These guidelines shall ensure that grading reflects a student’s relative mastery of an assignment and that a sufficient number of grades are taken to support the grade average assigned. Guidelines for grading shall be clearly communicated to students and parents.

The District shall permit a student who meets the criteria detailed in the grading guidelines a reasonable opportunity to redo an assignment or retake a test for which the student received a failing grade.

In accordance with this policy, the following guidelines have been established.

Purpose of Grading

In Frenship ISD, grades are a measure of students’ mastery of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. Grades communicate academic progress and provide timely feedback to students and parents.

Grading Roles and Responsibilities

Student-

To take ownership and responsibility for his/her performance.
To communicate with the teacher when he/she does not understand.
To set goals and be an active learner.

Parent/Guardian-

Initiate communication with the teacher when concerns arise or support is needed.
To assist with establishing a work environment conducive to learning.
To provide appropriate level of support for the student, stay current with following student’s grades in Skyward, assist with establishing a work environment conducive to learning.

Teacher-

To communicate expectations, both regular and long term.
To provide opportunity for feedback.
To enter grades into the online grade book according to guidelines.

Campus Administration-

To ensure that teachers understand the guidelines.
To monitor and support the guidelines.
To provide feedback to teachers concerning practices relating to the guidelines.

District Curriculum

Frenship ISD has an established written curriculum for courses based on the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).

All FISD teachers are expected to plan instruction and assess learning using the District scope and sequence.

Grading Practices

All grading practices used by teachers should be approved by campus administration and clearly communicated in writing to students and parents.

Lesson Plans

Lessons plans are essential to the planning and instructional process and are to be prepared a week in advance. Building principals will designate specific content to be included in the lesson plans. Lesson plans are to be kept up to date so that a substitute teacher can come into a room and teach with minor difficulty.

Parent Contact about Grades

Pre-Kindergarten: The Standards based report card will document student’s current level of academic growth/achievement every 12 weeks.

Kindergarten: The Standards based report card will document student’s current level of academic growth/achievement per six weeks.

Grades 1 through 12: Students will receive a formal progress note via Skyward every 3 weeks and a formal report card at the end of each 6 week grading period.

In addition to conferences scheduled on the campus calendar, conferences may be requested by a teacher or parent as needed. Additional communication to parents is required at the end of the three week grading period for students who are failing a class.

Required Number of Grades

A minimum of 10 grades should be entered per subject per six weeks.

Grades: Skyward

Grades will be recorded into the teacher gradebook weekly. By the end of the three week grading period, half of the grades must be recorded into Skyward. Grades recorded in the gradebook should be linked to key understanding, performance assessments, or TEKS student expectations.

Re-teaching/Re-assessment

Late work will be accepted up to five (5) school days of the original due date. However, after three (3) school days from the original due date, students are only able make up to a 70.

Teachers will cut off grading the Wednesday before the three-week progress report and six-week grading period.

Students shall be allowed a reasonable opportunity to redo all formative assessments (daily grades) for up to a 70 or half credit – whichever is best for the student.

Students shall be allowed a reasonable opportunity to redo all summative assessments (major grades) for up to a 70 or half-credit – whichever is best for the student.

The online gradebook (Skyward) provides opportunity for students to monitor their progress throughout the year. Progress reports may be provided at the teachers’ discretion. However, the student is responsible for monitoring their own academic progress. Students will receive a formal progress note via Skyward every 3-weeks and a formal report card at the end of each 6-week grading period.

The purpose of re-teaching and re-assessment is to allow students who have not yet demonstrated mastery of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills additional opportunities to learn. In order to support student learning, teachers will provide appropriate interventions for students before they re-do work. Student work quality and mastery of assignment/skill/learning must be reflected in the grade given to the student.

Make-up Work

For every school day absent, the student has two class days for completion of missed assignments. Administrators have the discretion to modify this guideline due to extenuating circumstance.

School Sponsored Activities

Students should make every effort to gather and complete work prior to a school sponsored absence. Time allowed for makeup work due to a school sponsored activity should be in accordance with the makeup work for all absences.

Homework

Homework should be used to reinforce and support mastery of learning. Homework is an extension of the concepts that were taught in class or a preview of content to be taught. The purpose and directions for the assignment need to be clearly communicated and should be preceded by instruction that adequately prepares the child to do the task independently and successfully. When appropriate and possible, homework should be differentiated for students depending on their mastery of the objectives.

Late Work

Grades on formative and summative assessments are to measure the level of mastery a student has demonstrated in regards to a specific learning objective. Students that submit late work may be asked to complete remediation steps at the teacher’s discretion prior to turning in the work after the deadline. A repeated pattern of late work may include further interventions and/or consequences.

Percent Weights of Grades

Reading Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies will have two categories in the electronic gradebook with the corresponding weights:

Formative 60%

Summative 40%

*Formative Assessments are progress monitoring tools that determine how we can help students in the process of learning. They are assessments FOR learning. Formative assessments can be taken as grades, but do not have to be recorded as a grade in the gradebook (ie: thumbs up/down, tickets out, four corners, gallery walks, labs, observations, questioning, discussions, learning/response logs, graphic organizers, peer/self-assessments, practice presentations, individual responses [written/digital], spelling tests, homework, editing, recording thinking while reading, think/pair/share, portfolios, anecdotal records, participation etc.).

*Summative Assessments measure how much students have learned over time. They are assessments OF learning. They assess mastery of the curriculum standards and help determine effectiveness of instruction. Summative assessments should be created prior to instruction to capture and identify both content and process of learning that represent the desired outcomes (ie: end of unit tests or projects, standardized assessments, labs, completed compositions, completed portfolios).

No more than 20% of a 6 weeks grade may be based on a single assignment, so no less than 2 summative assessments should be required each grading period.

Advanced Placement (AP) and Dual Credit

Instructors of college-level courses follow syllabi approved through the College Board and their cooperating college/university.

Academic Dishonesty

According to EIA (Local) a student found to have engaged in academic dishonesty shall be subject to grade penalties on assignments or tests and disciplinary penalties in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct. Academic dishonesty includes cheating or copying the work of another student, plagiarism, and unauthorized communication between students during an examination. The determination that a student has engaged in academic dishonesty shall be based on the judgment of the classroom teacher or another supervising professional employee, taking into consideration written materials, observation, or information from students.