Back in September at the beginning of the school year, a school-wide weighted grading system was instituted here at CHS. 

Assignments like homework, projects, and tests are now assigned to a specific category. Each section is a percentage of the student’s total grade based on the importance of the assessment. This was chosen over the previous total points system that made the grade the amount of points a student earned over the total amount of points they could obtain.

ELA supervisor Mrs. Kristin Melcher discussed the philosophy behind the system. 

“A weighted system allows you to assign a value to the category, to sort of protect it and to make sure that it gives the assessment you’re utilizing the weight you intend to. So to make sure that the things you want to count for the most do in fact count for the most,” Melcher said. 

The system originated with the CHS administration in order to ensure that all students had a fair chance of succeeding, even if they had different teachers. 

“This was a building-level goal, so that when students take a course, let’s say, 10th grade English, it shouldn’t really matter which teacher they landed with,” Melcher said. “If they’re taking that course, they should be assessed in the same way, just to be fair across the board.” 

Mr. Craig Angelini, who teaches AP Environmental Science and Marine Biology, feels that this isn’t a true reflection of real life. He uses the example of how in the workforce, five different bosses will judge you five different ways, so having a united weighted grading system is not good for the students because their teachers are all using the same system to grade.

Despite this, Melcher talked about how the system will benefit students by allowing a chance for recovery so that one assessment doesn’t drastically affect the grade.

“It’s really important that you have enough individual items in the category, because then one grade becomes the category, so we have to make sure that we have balance,” Melcher said.

Angelini further describes his experience with weighted grading. 

“When I was teaching honors bio years ago, I had adopted Mrs. Alvarado’s weighted system, because she was also teaching that course, so we wanted to do it the same way,” Angelini said.

He then discussed how he felt more comfortable with total points because it allowed him to easily check his grades for accuracy.

The new system can give new teachers more structure by chunking grades by category, but for veteran teachers like Angelini, he feels no real need for this system.

“I had that down. And I knew that my breakdowns were the way I wanted them to be, and I knew that one bad grade here or there wasn’t gonna disproportionately calculate the whole thing differently,” Angelini said.

Despite this, Melcher said she hopes that the effects of this new system will be minimal, and she stresses the importance of wanting to make the system equal. 

While Angelini is adjusting to the new grading system, he said it has not impacted the way he teaches his subject matter. 

Junior Molly Groover feels that she has not changed her work ethic despite this new system.

“I don’t think it really affects how I do my homework. I do my homework as soon as possible every time, even before the grading system changed,” Groover said. 

She said she thinks the system adds more pressure to her and other high school students’ lives.

The system is still being developed and data is still being collected based on students’ grades. Melcher explains that the CHS administration is conducting comparisons between teachers’ gradebooks from last year versus this year to ensure the transition to the new system is as smooth as possible.

“I think we’ll get a lot of data. I mean, each marking period is important, but I really do think you need the scope of the whole school here to really get full appreciation for what the effects of the changes have been,” Melcher said. 

She notes that the system could potentially be adapted in other schools in the district if it is able to be used with other grades and classes besides high school students. 

This new system is exciting for Melcher because students are now discussing their grades and understanding their significance. She wants students to understand that a grade is just one way of measuring their learning. 

“You can still learn a lot that doesn’t show up in the gradebook, just about yourself, your ability to persevere when things are really tough in a class or you receive a grade you hadn’t seen before and you figure out how to, like, push through that and adapt to this teacher’s style,” Melcher said.

With the well-being of the students in mind, CHS continues to adapt and refine the system so that it can help the students as much as possible in their high school journey.