Academic excellence committee advances grading policy review after audit, seeks consistent standards

The Savannah‑Chatham County Academic Excellence Committee spent much of its November meeting focused on a districtwide grading policy revision prompted by an internal audit that found inconsistent assignment weighting and varied approaches to late work across schools.

Superintendent Dr. Watts opened the discussion and asked Mr. Butler to report on findings and stakeholder outreach. Butler said the audit revealed "inconsistent assignment weighting between schools and classrooms, varied approaches to late work" and described ongoing engagement with teachers, parents, students and a policy working group; he said the district will return in January with a synthesized report and aims for a first policy read in April and a second in May 2026.

Board members pressed for clarity and enforceability. "We don't need to make rules we can't enforce," asked Dr. Hoskins Brown, questioning the feasibility of fully standardized grading while preserving teacher autonomy. Butler responded that the district must "develop some shared understanding around the types of grading approaches and frameworks" because "standards‑based grading sounds and looks differently for a lot of different people."

Several board members urged concrete guardrails. Miss Campbell argued for districtwide consistency and for setting minimum and maximum numbers of assignments so a single high- or low-stakes assessment does not unduly skew a student's grade. She suggested eliminating arbitrary minimum floor grades and instead mandating baseline extra‑credit or credit‑recovery options so students across schools have equitable opportunities.

Dr. Howard Hall highlighted concerns about early grade advancement: "We need to stop advancing students' grades K through third when they are below grade level," he said, citing third‑grade reading results and arguing that report‑card grades sometimes do not reflect actual performance.

Students from the superintendent's student senate — Maria Middleton of Savannah Early College and Marley Taylor of Jenkins High — told the committee they favor clearer communication with families, a balance between classwork and assessments (one suggested split was 45% classwork/55% assessments), designated makeup days or advisement days to accommodate students with jobs or extracurricular obligations, and limits on assessment counts to promote equity.

On implementation, Dr. Barnes emphasized a change‑management approach focused on leader development, virtual teacher sessions, centralized parent FAQs, and a monitoring cadence in which principal supervisors will review grade books and failure lists to ensure fidelity. Butler summarized next steps: collect remaining stakeholder input, synthesize results in January, and prepare the policy revision for board review in April–May 2026.

No formal motion or vote was taken at the meeting; staff said the policy is still in draft and will return after further engagement and internal synthesis. The committee asked staff to provide example report cards at the next meeting so board members can see how grades are currently presented to families.

The committee moved on after the grading discussion with the district planning further outreach to teachers through the professional senate and additional student and parent feedback collection.