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Board hears concerns about new high-school grading weightings; curriculum committee to review outcomes
Summary
The Vernon Township curriculum committee reviewed the new high-school grading policy (major/minor grade structure with example weightings CP 60/40, ACP 70/30, honors/AP 80/20), discussed possible schedule changes and asked administration to collect and present end-of-year data to evaluate effects.
Board members and committee chairs spent significant time on the district's revamped high-school grading policy and related class-weighting and scheduling questions at the Dec. 19 meeting. The curriculum committee summarized its work and said administrators and teachers have piloted the approach and will report outcomes at the end of the school year.
Committee details: The committee described the new grading framework as a shift to "major" and "minor" grades (examples cited in committee materials: college-prep courses 60% major/40% minor; ACP 70/30; honors/AP 80/20). Board members questioned how the new weightings might affect students in lower-level courses and whether the change could be gamed to yield passing grades without mastery. One board member asked for data and a clear breakdown of what teachers count as major versus minor assessments.
Process and follow-up: Committee members said the grading changes were developed by a team of roughly a dozen teachers and administrators and piloted in the prior year. The board directed administration to bring results and an analysis to the curriculum committee at year-end, including recommendations for any further adjustments or differential weightings by department. Committee leaders also flagged ongoing work to consider a block schedule at the high school and to review potential new math curricula for grades 4—8.
Attribution: The curriculum committee report and subsequent discussion were presented by committee members during the meeting; the committee asked administration to prepare a template to report incidents or system outages and to produce end-of-year data on grading outcomes.
