1

is to communicate students academic progress to parents

and guardians, high schools, employers, post-secondary
institutions and students themselves.
A grade should accurately reflect what students know
and are able to do in a course.
Non-academic factors including attendance, attitude,
behavior in class, and completion of homework are valuable,
but will be communicated separately. All grading and
reporting will be based on the essential and important
standards of a course and not on a curve. Students are not
in competition with each other for the highest score.
To ensure students grades accurately reflect what they
know and are able to do, students grades will be a
combination of formative and summative assessments.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

GRADING

BASED

THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF GRADING

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

STANDARDS

MIDDLE SCHOOL: Not more than 30% of the grade

HIGH SCHOOL: Not more than 20% of the grade
The goal of Formative Assessment is to monitor
student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can
be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by
students to improve their learning. This grade is meant to
communicate how a student is doing during the learning
process through classroom practice or homework.
EXAMPLES of formative assessments include asking
students to:
draw a concept map in class to represent their
understanding of a topic
submit one or two sentences identifying the main
point of a lecture
turn in a research proposal for early feedback

MIDDLE SCHOOL: Not less than 70% of the grade

HIGH SCHOOL: Not less than 80% of the grade
The goal of Summative Assessment is to evaluate
student learning at the end of an instructional
unit by comparing it against some standard or
benchmark. This grade is meant to communicate
what a student knows and is able to do after
adequate study.
EXAMPLES of summative assessments include:
a midterm exam
a final project
a paper