Port Washington educators propose major revisions to Schreiber High School grading system

At the April meeting of the Port Washington Union Free School District curriculum committee, a subcommittee of Schreiber High School educators presented a set of recommendations to overhaul the high school's grading system, saying the current lookup-table process is confusing for families and can create uneven incentives for students.

Craig Weiss, assistant principal at Schreiber High School and co-chair of the grading subcommittee, said the group recommends four primary changes: weight each of the four quarters equally (25 percent each), add a third band within letter grades (A+, A, A- and comparable B/C bands), move the district's nonweighted GPA scale to 4.3 and apply a 0.3 weighting for honors and AP courses (producing a proposed weighted top of 4.6), and put both weighted and unweighted GPAs on the transcript. The presentation also recommends removing longstanding transcript code grades (E and F variants), consolidating WP/WF notations to a single W for withdrawals, and ending the practice of treating finals as a separate "fifth quarter."

The committee framed the proposals as steps to increase transparency and alignment with peer districts and colleges. "There is no timeline on implementing the recommendations that you're gonna learn about today," said Dr. Shields, who asked the committee to present the proposal to the public. Weiss told the committee the recommendations grew from work begun in 2018 and resumed after COVID, and from consultations with teachers, administrators, students and college-admissions staff.

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