SBG (It's Terrible!)
Over the last few years, students and staff have been trying to adjust to and alter the Standards Based Grading system. Within each classroom are students with a number of complaints about the SBG system, how flawed it is, and that the SBG system should be revoked and replaced with the standard ABCDF Scale. These ideas have been brought to the attention of LVHS Officials. They currently want to make changes to the grading system, but have no idea how to do it.
According to the Principal of LVHS, Mr. Weaver, Standards Based Grading was created to show students and teachers more specific reports on every strength and weakness of a student. Having standards shows what kind of work students are good at, and what kind of work students need to improve on.
The work students need to improve on was partially decided by the teachers, not just the Board of Education. Mr. Weaver says that “teachers erred on the side of leniency in the beginning. GPA’s across the board went up year one. Second year, the GPA’s across the board were still stable”. There was then a group decision to raise the passing point to make things more strenuous for students.
Although there was a group decision to increase expectations, how far these expectations were taken was left up to the teachers. In his interview, Mr. Weaver said that “Certain guidelines are in place, but it is mostly up to the teachers to make the decision.” Teachers can decide how important each standard is, and they make specific ones have more or less of an effect on a student's’ grade based on their opinion. For instance, Mrs. Stuckwischs’ standard of attendance is weighted a 1.0, while the standard for having strong presentations is weighted a 2.0 on Jumprope. On the other hand, Mrs. Malone’s Presentation Standard is weighted with a 5.0.
The reason that students and staff alike are complaining about this grading system is because it has yet to have any major benefits. Mr. Weaver says that teachers are now able to detect weak points in their students skillset. However, all this has done so far is affect grades catastrophically. It has been determined by the school board that SBG does not need to be eliminated, but it does need to be improved. It has been said by Mr. Weaver that the system will improve over time, they just need to figure out how to do it. He also says, even with the countless student complaints, that “Eventually letter grades will go away.” This is partially because of his belief that the Letter-Based grading system is “a calculation scale, this (grading system) is a performance scale.”
Stay calm, students. The way students are graded will be changed, but there is currently no word on when. Our cries and worries about SBG have been acknowledged, which is a start for sure. Although this system will not be retracted, it will supposedly be improved. In the last two years, passing classes has become even harder. Many students hope that this will not be the case in the near future, and Mr. Weaver hopes for improvement as well. As a matter of fact, he said the exact words of “Needs improvement” in his interview with my fellow journalists, which have covered this topic as well.