Arcadia continues to navigate standards based grading, honor roll changes

Multiple Arcadia school board members want more community conversation regarding the district’s possible transition to standards based grading from traditional “A” to “F” letter grades.

The Arcadia school board unanimously approved continuing to give letter grades for its middle and high school students while also showing more information on learning standards alongside those grades.

The board approved its student handbook for the 2023-24 school year after multiple questions about standards based grading for its older students and removing the honor roll. 

The middle school was set to transition to standards based grading this school year, which would have seen students graded on learning comprehension based on scores of mastery (three), developing (two), beginning (one) or insufficient evidence (zero).

Board member Dana Conrad said she would not have known about this possible change if she was not on the board, and she wants more communication with families on the topic.

“The communication has not been there on standards based grading,” Conrad said.

Board member Diana Tempski called her feelings “very strong” about standards based grading because of how quickly the district is implementing it, she told the board after asking that the handbook approval be moved from the consent agenda to an individual action item at last Monday’s meeting.

“It was communicated to the board that we would make the final say, we would approve whether or not we went to standards based grading. So I am in no way shape or form in favor of approving a handbook that has all the standards based grading language in it. So I guess that’s one of my biggest beefs,” Tempski said.

High school principal Wyatt Anderson said that standardized grading takes place at the middle school and could eventually move to the high school. This would not eliminate letter grades but rather create a scale that allows for both a traditional letter grading system and standardized grading system to be used.

Superintendent Lance Bagstad supported that statement, saying letter grades will still exist with “conversions” being used to asses learning standards in classrooms.

More communication needs to happen with families, then, Tempski responded, adding that she is not completely against the change.

“Parents are not getting that information, Lance,” Tempski said. “That’s the conception they’re getting based on the communication they’re getting from teachers. Parents are not getting that message at all.”

The current grading system used by most schools is outdated, Bagstad said, and he believes in standards based grading.

“That has never been the conversation that letter grades will completely disappear. The issue with the current system that we use, (it) makes zero sense,” he said. “Why do we have 10 percentage points for an A, B, C and D and 50 to 60 percentage points for an F?”

The high school has seen some teachers move to pieces of standards based grading, including allowing retakes on tests for failures. That is a positive thing, but the high school has not completely shifted to standards based grading, Anderson feels.

“I’m struggling how attempting the pieces of standards based grading that they did with unlimited attempts to learn the material and retest on it would actually be detrimental to the kid other than the fact that if they didn’t have that standard mastered? That one thing? Yeah, that showed up as they needed to retake it. They had to come in, the student had to come in and reassess,” Anderson said.

Communication with families continued to be Tempski’s biggest concern, and other board members also shared questions on letter grades and how that could affect student motivation.

Newsletters to parents have had information on standards based grading “every month”, Bagstad said, later saying that secondary schools must have a way to show letter grades based on how GPAs are used across the general education system.

The handbook proposal showed that the middle school would move to standards based grading, and the superintendent said that makes sense instead of letter grades.

“If a parent is having a conversation with a teacher about a standard a kid doesn’t know, they’re going to understand a lot better what the kid knows and doesn’t know than they are if you just give them an A, B,C, D or F because if I asked right now each of you to write down your definition of an A, I’d have five different answers,” Bagstad said.

“Parents understand letter grades because it’s what they lived. That didn’t make it right.”

Bagstad compared it to earning a drivers license because if students fail that test, they are told what they need to improve upon and then return to try again.

Conrad said she agrees with the idea of standards based grading, but she still wants letter grades in the middle school.

“I think that there needs to be letter grades attached to that, even at middle school. Kids understand that. I can tell you when you have a student and they’re getting an F,” Conrad said, “they know that they’re failing and they need to work harder.”