Grading

Grading Overview

Grades should reflect a student's mastery of the content being taught and should not rely on student work habits. Numerical grades according to the HISD grading scale will be used for the appropriate grade levels as listed in the policy.

Progress Reports

Progress Reports will be sent home midway through each grading period if a student is making unsatisfactory progress. If a student's average falls below 70, or unexcused absences exceed 10% after the scheduled notice of progress reports has been sent home, the teacher should send a notice of progress report home immediately. Extra effort must be made to give parents advance notice of a pending failing grade before the report card is sent home.

Report Cards

Grade cards will be completed at the end of each six-week grading period according to guidelines. Homeroom teachers are responsible for maintaining grade cards and submitting the appropriate reports.

Houston ISD Report Card Dates: 

• Cycle 1- September 26, 2025

• Cycle 2- November 10, 2025

• Cycle 3- January 9, 2026

• Cycle 4- February 27, 2026

• Cycle 5- April 24, 2026

• Cycle 6- June 4, 2026

Grading Requirements

HISD Board Policy EIA (LOCAL) provides that “the Superintendent or designee shall ensure that each campus or instructional level develops guidelines for teachers to follow in determining grades for students. These guidelines shall ensure that grading accurately reflects student achievement and that a sufficient number of grades are recorded to support the assigned average. Guidelines for grading shall be communicated to students and parents. School Guidelines training is offered to all Campus Administrators, Registrars, and Student Information Representatives.

This policy also provides that “Assignments, tests, projects, classroom activities, and other instructional activities shall be designed so that the student’s performance indicates the level of mastery of the designated District standards. The student’s mastery level shall be a major factor in determining the grade for a subject or course”.

To this end, each teacher will be responsible for:

• Having fair, valid, and consistent grading procedures;

• Ensuring that conduct grades are maintained separately from academic ones;

• Using those procedures to encourage student success;

• Exercising a high degree of professional judgment in evaluating student achievement; and

• Documenting the resulting grades in the grade book or class record book.

Basis for Grading

Horn Policy- A student shall be allowed a reasonable opportunity to make up or redo a class assignment for which the student received a failing grade. A reasonable opportunity is considered one week for correction & returns.

Classroom teachers shall enter weekly grades for all courses for each student every week. Grades are entered by a teacher/teacher of record in PowerSchool. If extenuating circumstances prevent the use of PowerSchool by any teacher or certified associate teacher designated as Teacher of Record for any grading period or course, an alternative method for keeping records of course grading (e.g., a hardcopy grade book) must be in place to support any grades entered manually into PowerSchool. In such circumstances, additional principal supervision is necessary. If a long-term certified associate teacher is designated as the Teacher of Record, they will be provided access to PowerSchool. An administrator, department chair, or lead teacher should ensure that grades are posted weekly, either in PowerSchool or a hard-copy grade book.

Student grades will be determined by the teacher's evaluation of growth attained during the significant learning activities conducted by the teacher in a given reporting period. The teacher will consider all available data when evaluating a student's achievement against the grade or course-level standards. The following indicators may be used (as appropriate) to verify that the student has mastered the required standards in a subject area:

• Standardized test performance,

• Notebooks and other classwork,

• Projects,

• Performances,

• Observations, or

• Teacher-made tests

This information will be documented in the teachers' class record books and students' work folders, and will be available to parents upon request. As an important part of the evaluation process, effective teachers identify performance standards, communicate specific expectations for achieving these standards, and provide ongoing feedback as students work to complete a task. They plan time for in-class conferences, make corrective comments applicable to all students, and provide private conversations and written comments on papers.

EB students in an ESL program will be assessed on progress in subjects taught in English using CBLI methods. Teachers must note in PowerSchool the linguistic accommodations, and grading should reflect the student’s efforts at this level.

Accommodation list for the grade book

Teacher Grade Changes

The only reasons for changing a student's grade after it has been recorded are:

• If there was an error in the computation of the student's grade, or

• If an error was made in entering grades into the teacher’s grade book

All such changes must be initiated by the teacher assigning the grade and must be approved in writing by the principal. The rationale for the change must also be kept on file. A principal may not arbitrarily change a grade. All changes must be made before the end of the next grading period.

After a cycle grade has been recorded, no additional classwork may be accepted to improve a student's grade. If work assigned during the cycle was not completed, the student should receive an "INC," and the grade will be updated once the job is completed within the required timeframe.

A sample Grade Change form is available to assist schools in documenting teacher grade changes, located in the forms channel.

Academic Dishonesty

Students found to have engaged in academic dishonesty shall be subject to disciplinary penalties and grade penalties on assignments or tests. Academic dishonesty encompasses cheating, copying another student's work, plagiarism, and unauthorized communication between students during an examination. The determination that a student has engaged in academic dishonesty shall be based on the judgment of the classroom teacher or other supervising professional employee, taking into consideration written materials, observation, or information from students.

See: The Code of Student Conduct: Level II Acts of Misconduct

Elementary Core Enrichment Classes

The following grading scale is used for Enrichment classes for elementary students in grades 1 – 6:

• E - Excellent

• S - Satisfactory

• N - Needs Improvement

• U - Unsatisfactory 

Work Habits

If a student's work habits are satisfactory, no marks will be given to a student. However, if a student “needs improvement” in any of the work habit areas, an “N”  will indicate there is a need for improvement.

Each student's work habits are evaluated in the following areas at the end of each grading cycle:

• Follows classroom directions 

• Participates in class

• Completes homework 

• Completes classwork 

• Is courteous 

• Works and plays well with others

• Uses time effectively 

SOAR Conduct 

Each student's SOAR Conduct is evaluated in the following areas at the end of each grading cycle, directly aligned with the schoolwide SOAR behavior matrix:

• Success

• Ownership

• Accountability 

• Respect 

A student's conduct grade is based on a teacher's evaluation of the student's overall behavior during each of the grading cycles:

• E - Excellent

• S - Satisfactory

• P - Poor

• U - Unsatisfactory

NOTICE TO PARENTS OF UNSATISFACTORY GRADES/EXCESSIVE ABSENCES

TEC §28.022 states that parents or legal guardians must be notified at least once every 12 weeks of unsatisfactory grades. This legal requirement applies to all grades, including pre-kindergarten. The parent or legal guardian must sign this notice and return it to the school. However, in HISD, a notice of progress reports shall be distributed to parents/legal guardians during the third week of each six-week grading period for each student who is failing a subject.