Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia is planning to reconvene its equitable grading practice advisory committee soon, Sloan Presidio, the school’s chief academic officer, said at last week’s school board meeting.
The committee, Presidio said, is planning to review some of the grading policy changes that the Commonwealth’s largest school system made last year. It will meet around the end of the first quarter.
Friday marked the end of the first quarter of the school year, according to the county’s calendar.
“I do want everybody to know that our goal is consistency in grading scales, from school to school and classroom to classroom,” Presidio said. ” … We took some good steps last year, and we’ve got more work to do this year.”
Presidio and Superintendent Michelle Reid’s remarks came during a conversation about increasing enrollment in middle school Algebra classes.
Referring to the weight of certain exams in calculating an overall grade, board member Ricardy Anderson pointed out “inconsistencies across our schools.”
Some schools give formative assessments a 45% weight and summative assignments a 55% weight, Anderson said, while others have a 90%-10% weight for such assignments.
“While this is commonplace at our high schools, it is also commonplace in our middle schools,” Anderson said. “I would love to ensure that C- at school X is the same C- at school Y.”
Last fall, Fairfax County convened several school leaders to review grading policies across high schools, but recommendations from that group weren’t made public.
Earlier this school year, the school system updated its policies to allow teachers to give students who don’t turn an assignment in a zero.
Previously, the lowest grade a teacher could give was a 50%, regardless of whether an assignment was submitted.
Student board member Rida Karim also voiced concerns about grading inconsistencies at last week’s meeting, urging the county to “bring consistency to this matter and centralize our grading systems as each school currently operates based on its individual needs.”
Colleges evaluate applicants based on individual school grading practices, Karim said.
However, she stressed the importance of addressing disparities “such as Annandale at a 90-10 split and Edison at a 95-5 split, and other high schools with highly unreasonable grading splits.”
“This lack of equity poses challenges for students in their pursuit of excellence,” Karim said.