Rolling gradebook?

[Anonymous]

Are all FCPS teachers using a rolling gradebook or does it start fresh every quarter? Looking at a HS level class in MS. Does the grade or a specific number like 93.6 roll over?

[Anonymous]

All grades are used to continue calculating the cumulative grade. You don't start with a clean slate each quarter. This is a more accurate way to calculate grades. Everything continues to count...and a progress grade is reported three times before the final grade in June.

It is harder to bring your grade down, and harder to bring it up as you get further into the year....but the grade you see is a truer reflection of your accomplishments for the whole course to date.

[Anonymous]

The syllabus of each class describes grading. Read them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All grades are used to continue calculating the cumulative grade. You don't start with a clean slate each quarter. This is a more accurate way to calculate grades. Everything continues to count...and a progress grade is reported three times before the final grade in June.

It is harder to bring your grade down, and harder to bring it up as you get further into the year....but the grade you see is a truer reflection of your accomplishments for the whole course to date.

I don’t like this idea. You could have one bad quarter which messes up your chance to do better for the final. I like starting fresh each quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All grades are used to continue calculating the cumulative grade. You don't start with a clean slate each quarter. This is a more accurate way to calculate grades. Everything continues to count...and a progress grade is reported three times before the final grade in June.

It is harder to bring your grade down, and harder to bring it up as you get further into the year....but the grade you see is a truer reflection of your accomplishments for the whole course to date.

I don’t like this idea. You could have one bad quarter which messes up your chance to do better for the final. I like starting fresh each quarter.

Agree. It's another progressive idea that just hurts students and/or makes school harder or more discouraging.

Standards based grading is the same - students are aiming for high GPAs and a 3 looks bad to them when it's supposed to be fine. I feel like schools just don't like students or understand how people work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All grades are used to continue calculating the cumulative grade. You don't start with a clean slate each quarter. This is a more accurate way to calculate grades. Everything continues to count...and a progress grade is reported three times before the final grade in June.

It is harder to bring your grade down, and harder to bring it up as you get further into the year....but the grade you see is a truer reflection of your accomplishments for the whole course to date.

I don’t like this idea. You could have one bad quarter which messes up your chance to do better for the final. I like starting fresh each quarter.

Agree. It's another progressive idea that just hurts students and/or makes school harder or more discouraging.

Standards based grading is the same - students are aiming for high GPAs and a 3 looks bad to them when it's supposed to be fine. I feel like schools just don't like students or understand how people work.

you are wrong. And if you are a person who likes or appreciates the clarity of math, then you should 100% support rolling grade books.

If you had the old way, you might have one test in the first quarter b/c kids are just getting back into school, learning routines, whatever. But, by the third quarter, you might have three tests in that quarter. Under the old way, the single test in the first quarter has THREE TIMES as much effect on your final grade as each test in the third quarter! That doesn't make sense! Why should those three tests in the third quarter have much LESS value compared to the one test in the first quarter?

Under rolling grade book... every test has the same "weight"/impact on the final grade. That is Fair. That is Accurate. There are no made-up stopping points that give unequal weight to some tests just because there were fewer of them in one quarter vs another.

And going on... your final grade for the year should be the SUM TOTAL of all your work for the year. Right? So naturally, as you add more scores into the average, each one is going to have less total impact on your grade. (i.e. if you have 80 graded items throughout the year, each one has less impact -- for better or for worse -- on your overall grade, compared to a situation where you only have 20 graded items.)

The old way allowed students to think they they were suddenly doing well (clean slate -- oh look, I got an A on one test -- so I have an "A" this quarter). But, it was a false snapshot b/c they might have a C and a B for the two previous quarters. You might feel great about the A -- but it allows you to ignore the fact that your grade so far for the course is NOT going to be an A ... it's going to be a B. Rolling grade book tells you the truth in that respect... it would show a B (or a little lower) because that's what you have cummulatively earned for the course so far.

I guess it depends whether you like to fool yourself temporarily or know the actual truth about where your grade is.

[Anonymous]

I think in MS and HS it gives kids too many opportunities to be lazy and turn in work late. No firm deadlines is terrible for teens.

[Anonymous]

It seems to depend on the individual class. I have 3 kids in HS and some classes are rolling and some are not. It isn't consistent across departments, either.

[Anonymous]

Can’t you just figure it out in your head simply when using a traditional grade book? My kid got an A in the first semester and now he has a C so unless something changes, they will average to a B.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think in MS and HS it gives kids too many opportunities to be lazy and turn in work late. No firm deadlines is terrible for teens.

You are blaming "rolling grade book" for something that is a separate policy decision (re: how long students can turn in late work). That is not a feature of a rolling gradebook.

A rolling gradebook means all tests have equal weight -- regardless of WHEN in the year or which quarter the test was given. Rolling gradebook is more accurate and fair to students.

Policies about late work are separate from the policy to use a rolling gradebook.

[Anonymous]

For my high schooler, they are not using rolling grade book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All grades are used to continue calculating the cumulative grade. You don't start with a clean slate each quarter. This is a more accurate way to calculate grades. Everything continues to count...and a progress grade is reported three times before the final grade in June.

It is harder to bring your grade down, and harder to bring it up as you get further into the year....but the grade you see is a truer reflection of your accomplishments for the whole course to date.

I don’t like this idea. You could have one bad quarter which messes up your chance to do better for the final. I like starting fresh each quarter.

Agree. It's another progressive idea that just hurts students and/or makes school harder or more discouraging.

Standards based grading is the same - students are aiming for high GPAs and a 3 looks bad to them when it's supposed to be fine. I feel like schools just don't like students or understand how people work.

you are wrong. And if you are a person who likes or appreciates the clarity of math, then you should 100% support rolling grade books.

If you had the old way, you might have one test in the first quarter b/c kids are just getting back into school, learning routines, whatever. But, by the third quarter, you might have three tests in that quarter. Under the old way, the single test in the first quarter has THREE TIMES as much effect on your final grade as each test in the third quarter! That doesn't make sense! Why should those three tests in the third quarter have much LESS value compared to the one test in the first quarter?

Under rolling grade book... every test has the same "weight"/impact on the final grade. That is Fair. That is Accurate. There are no made-up stopping points that give unequal weight to some tests just because there were fewer of them in one quarter vs another.

And going on... your final grade for the year should be the SUM TOTAL of all your work for the year. Right? So naturally, as you add more scores into the average, each one is going to have less total impact on your grade. (i.e. if you have 80 graded items throughout the year, each one has less impact -- for better or for worse -- on your overall grade, compared to a situation where you only have 20 graded items.)

The old way allowed students to think they they were suddenly doing well (clean slate -- oh look, I got an A on one test -- so I have an "A" this quarter). But, it was a false snapshot b/c they might have a C and a B for the two previous quarters. You might feel great about the A -- but it allows you to ignore the fact that your grade so far for the course is NOT going to be an A ... it's going to be a B. Rolling grade book tells you the truth in that respect... it would show a B (or a little lower) because that's what you have cummulatively earned for the course so far.

I guess it depends whether you like to fool yourself temporarily or know the actual truth about where your grade is.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this so clearly. I was skeptical at the beginning of 7th grade, when I heard my son's school was using this, but after thinking through the same thought process you describe, I realized it's actually a much fairer way to grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in MS and HS it gives kids too many opportunities to be lazy and turn in work late. No firm deadlines is terrible for teens.

You are blaming "rolling grade book" for something that is a separate policy decision (re: how long students can turn in late work). That is not a feature of a rolling gradebook.

A rolling gradebook means all tests have equal weight -- regardless of WHEN in the year or which quarter the test was given. Rolling gradebook is more accurate and fair to students.

Policies about late work are separate from the policy to use a rolling gradebook.

That's not how it works mathematically - the first grades have the most weight and the later grades have lower weight and less impact on the final grade. For example, when you average 3 numbers, each number is worth 33% of the total. When you average 8 numbers, each number is only worth 13% of the total.

A four quarter system makes each quarter have equal weight.

[Anonymous]

^ This is just another version of the complaining from the 50% thread that just reveals parents really do like grade inflation.

[Anonymous]

What do the transcripts show when applying to colleges?
Only final grade or quarters too?