Patchogue-Medford board presses for clearer rollout after debate over new grading policy

Trustees, teachers and parents pressed district leaders on Sept. 16 over a recently adopted grading policy designed to bring consistency to how teachers weight assessments across courses.

At the meeting, Mrs. Kanetti, the district’s curriculum lead, said the policy was intended to reduce variability when a student takes the same course from different teachers. “No one test should be counting more than 20%,” she said, and added the policy lists examples of summative assessments — “it could be an essay, it could be a presentation, [it] could be a lab” — so assessments are not limited to pencil-and-paper exams.

Trustees and teachers raised two recurring concerns: that the policy’s technical language (summative vs. formative) is not easily understood by parents, and that some teachers could still produce a ‘test-heavy’ environment by giving a small number of high-value assessments. A trustee who served on the committee that drafted the policy acknowledged the committee’s work but urged the administration to break the policy down into plain-language examples for families. “Parents are seeing numbers and change and are intimidated; we need to make it clear what this means,” a trustee said.

Administrators described multiple measures already in place to reduce testing pressure: department-level curriculum conversations to align assessment types; limits on how often short-cycle assessments count as summative; and schedule adjustments so day‑A/day‑B courses are assessed less frequently in short marking periods. Mrs. Kanetti said the district compiled course-level grading worksheets and posted them online so parents and teachers can see how specific courses will assess students.

Superintendent Dr. Jones told the board the administration would return with a structured outreach plan. “What I’m hearing is we need to unpack this for the community,” he said, and proposed parent workshops and additional department-level guidance. Teacher representatives and the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers (PMAA) said they support continued monitoring; PMAA representative Kevin Tulin told the board he expects staff to re-evaluate implementation and “see if this is or is not working” by Thanksgiving.

The meeting included several public comments raising the same themes: requests for clear definitions of formative versus summative work, examples of non-test summative assessments (projects, labs, presentations), and reassurance that Regents exams will continue to be counted historically (administrators confirmed Regents have traditionally counted for 8% of the final grade). The board and administration agreed to prepare plain-language materials and a timeline for community workshops and to report back to the board.

Next steps: administrators will develop a communications plan and outreach sessions for parents and teachers to clarify assessment categories, and trustees asked for a follow-up report after the first marking period’s results are available.