At the beginning of last year, a new initiative was introduced: the rolling gradebook. Unlike the quarter system, where each quarter students received grades that reflected their work from that specific quarter, the rolling gradebook does not differentiate between quarters, instead tracking cumulative progress in a course.
Although traditional, administrators saw many problems with the quarterly grading system. To begin, the system often unfairly weighted quarters based on the differing amount of assignments in each quarter. “If you had…four equally weighted quarters but one quarter had three tests and the next quarter had only two, well in the quarter that had only two tests, those tests would count more in the course grade because they made up more of that quarterly grade. Meanwhile, the teacher may not have wanted those tests to count more and would have no way of adjusting it and maintaining fidelity to the quarterly system,” SHS Principal Kenneth Bonamo explained. This inequity among grades received critique from students and teachers alike.
School administrators also saw a decrease in students’ wellbeing around the end of each quarter because the original system often forced teachers to squeeze in an extra assessment at the end of a quarter instead of meeting student’s needs. “Before the rolling gradebook, the end of a quarters were some of the most stressful times because all of my teachers were cramming their tests into the last week of the quarter. Now though, teachers spread their tests out despite the quarter ending,” Victoria Roberts ‘26 added. As a result, tests are often more spread out, benefitting teachers whose students are less likely to ask them for extensions.
With the rolling gradebook system, students receive a more holistic view of where they stand in a class. Furthermore, the new gradebook also puts greater emphasis on long term progress, helping students to understand their efforts during the entire school year.
Another benefit of the rolling gradebook is the flexibility that it provides teachers for new learning opportunities. “I can now allow revisions from the previous quarter. So, I just announced to my classes that they can choose…one writing piece from quarter one, they can meet with me, and they can revise it. That wouldn’t have been possible before [and] revision is an important way that students grow as writers, so that’s just a new learning opportunity that’s become available.” SHS English teacher Daniel Zeliger shared.
This new system also helps mediate stress from a couple of bad assessments. If a student does poorly one quarter, but sees that their grade only changes slightly, it helps to avoid some of the stress that may have been felt from the quarterly system where a poor test grade would have had a more significant impact. “Towards the end of the year, in math last year, my test grades were not as good as in the beginning of the year, but the tests I did very well on in the beginning of the year balanced out my not so good grades at the end of the year,” Roberts added, emphasizing the benefit of the new system on student’s wellbeing.
Despite support from students on the new system, many parents do not feel the same way. In letters from parents that the school received, parents were “critical of the rolling gradebook because it does not allow for a snapshot of recent performance. That if a student improves drastically or has a drop-off, that gets lost because the grade is smoothed out,” Bonamo explained. This is a trend that teachers also noticed. “I think the one downside of the role in Gradebook is that it does mask changes quarter to quarter, and it just increases the need for teachers to be communicative with students, and for students to have a better understanding of their grades,” Zeliger explained.
To address these issues, along with parent critiques, administrators plan to implement a new system. “We are looking at setting up a consistent criteria that says student change in performance by X points or X letter grades would require a communication home. So that we can keep the rolling grade book, but address the concern about not seeing that recent performance more isolated,” Bonamo explained. The hope is that this plan, along with efforts from teachers will help increase communication between teachers, students, and parents around grades.
Regardless of these concerns, administrators have agreed that the potential benefits of the new system outweigh the concerns. Zeliger emphasized. As of now, the rolling gradebook will continue. The most important efforts to accomplish this goal will be through communication between teachers, parents, and students.
