No more As and Bs? Midlands school district looks at adopting new grading scale

Report cards in Lexington-Richland 5 schools could soon look very different.

Instead of receiving an A, B or C, parents of elementary school students in the Chapin-Irmo area district could soon see grades of M, PR or NI.

The district is discussing changing its grading policy to move away from evaluating younger students on a scale of 100 and instead using a broader method of evaluating a student’s progress on developing various skills.

A future report card from one of the district’s 13 elementary schools could instead tell parents their child has “met” expectations (M), is “progressing” (PR) or “needs improvement” (NI). The report card would also spell out specific course objectives the student has or hasn’t met in an “I Can” statement that would allow parents and students to see what specific areas need improvement.

It’s called proficiency-based grading, and districts across the country have started adopting it out of concern that traditional grades don’t adequately measure what a student has or hasn’t learned coming out of a particular class or what areas they need to focus on.

“It’s based on skills learned, not points,” Tina McCaskill, Lexington-Richland 5’s chief of academics, said at Monday’s school board meeting. “When students know what they’re supposed to be learning, they can say, ‘I know this; I need help on this.’”

But as the new grading system has gained traction nationwide, some have raised concerns about the policy because it doesn’t allow for a direct conversion to the grade point average (GPA) that can be so vital in getting students into college. Critics also say there’s little evidence the grading change actually improves results in the classroom.

“Grading is never going to be perfect,” McCaskill said. “It’s one of the messiest things that we do, and it’s one of the most important things that we do.”

McCaskill said the district has for years now been researching ways to improve its grading policy in line with new standards set by the district’s accrediting body. Administrators started crafting a proficiency-based standard in February 2023, she said, then expanded their discussion to include principals in March and started doing presentations for faculty, staff and parents on the school improvement councils in April and May.

By the beginning of 2024, Lexington-Richland 5 had come up with mock report cards using the proficiency-based standards. Administrators have started to do grading presentations at each school and currently plan to use the summer to do professional development with teachers on the new standards.

Fifth grade Montessori classes are already using the proficiency-based standards this year, but it may take up to three years to roll out the standards throughout the district, McCaskill said.

It’s not clear how many schools or school districts in South Carolina are currently using proficiency-based grading, although the S.C. Department of Education said at least a handful have already moved to the standards, including K5 classes at neighboring Lexington 1.

There’s no state prohibition against the practice, as local school districts are only required to assess high school credits using South Carolina’s uniform grading policy, the state department said in response to questions from The State.

“All public schools are required to teach and assess SC state standards,” the Education Department said in an email. “Other than UGP requirements, specific grading and reporting practices are the purview of local boards of education.”

Some Lexington-Richland 5 school board members were skeptical about the change. Board member Catherine Huddle said parents already have the ability to monitor their child’s progress using the district’s online tools.

“It’s going to be an enormous change when you go to middle school, and now you have big kid grades,” Huddle said. She said she hoped the school board would have an opportunity to vote on the change before it is implemented.

Some members asked if it would be possible to slowly introduce the new proficiency-based standards to elementary school classes one at a time. But McCaskill advised adopting a full grading policy at one time.

“To go in with one or two (subjects) in my opinion is very confusing for students and parents,” she said. “It’s not going to be perfect, we know that, but the consistency from Seven Oaks to Piney Woods starts from the ‘I Can’ statements.”

District Superintendent Akil Ross said the revised grading scale could help reverse the learning deficit some students continue to show since schools reopened from the pandemic. Some are now years behind their grade level, he said.

“If my child gets a 72, I don’t know what that means,” Ross said. “If it says ‘he can’t divide fractions,’ I know what the tutor needs to work on.”

No grades below a 50?

After students enter higher schools, their grades may still change. Board members on Monday also reviewed a proposed change that would affect middle and high school students who are struggling in their classes. While individual tests and assignments would still be graded on the 0-to-100 scale, for quarter and final term grades no student would be able to fall below a 50.

Such a change would help students who steadily improve over the course of the semester “not fail because of an early catastrophic grade,” McCaskill said.

Research from the University of Massachusetts over seven years showed that only about 0.3% of students ended up with a higher grade than they would have earned without this type of policy, usually with a D, McCaskill said. But those students may have failed altogether despite their best efforts to keep up and potentially withdrawn from school entirely as a result.

Some school board members were also skeptical of that change.

“If a student is failing, should we not withdraw them and put them in second semester and give them another chance to pass the course?” asked Mike Satterfield. “One of the biggest issues I hear teachers face with students is that they won’t get off their phone and won’t do the work.”

McCaskill pointed out that state policy already requires a withdraw/fail or failure due to attendance to be scored as a 50.

Studies have shown that “assigning low grades as punishment does not encourage students to do better,” McCaskill told board members. If anything, receiving low grades can cause students to disengage from classroom materials and decrease their motivation to finish school, or even encourage cheating, McCaskill said.

“The point is keeping kids within a mathematical chance,” said board member Kevin Scully. “If there’s a catastrophic event, this will keep them in the game mathematically. I think it’s something we should consider.”