Craig High School is in its third out of five year conversion from letter grades to standard based grades.

    Under this new policy, grades will be represented by the numbers one through four.

   Understandably, the student body has questions regarding this change. Why the conversion to something new? How will numbers translate to GPA? What are the major changes that will be made when grading? Why hasn’t it been talked about?

    The idea behind the new grading policy, expected to happen between the years 2021 and 2022, is to grade students based on core skills rather than surface material. Think of it like the soft skills that are taught in Freshman Seminar. In that class, you learn the concepts of communication, problem solving, teamwork, and analysis for the real world, post-secondary school. You learn the skills that will be helpful for your life. In the near future, this concept of learning skills will be applied to all courses here at Craig High School.

    The school has decided to make this conversion in an attempt to hone in on the skills that students learn. With this new grading policy, teachers have to change the way that they teach in a way that makes the target goal more specific. There will be a list for core skills that students must learn through assignments, by a summative, and by the year’s end to show that they have learned what they should for the year and class they are in.

    These new grades of numbers one through four, rather than an A through F, will look different, but overall won’t affect how students calculate a GPA. By using these numbers instead of letter grades, it is illustrating whether or not the teacher believes that you have mastered that skill, but percents will still be present. For example, a student that has all fours will have a 4.0 GPA, and a students with all threes will have a 3.0 GPA.

    This new grading policy has not been talked about because the conversion process is still being undergone, so it is not finalized yet. This new grading policy also does not affect the juniors and seniors here at Craig.