LISD Secondary Grading Guidelines

Please see the document below for Leander ISD's Secondary Grading Guidelines.

LISD Secondary Grading Guidelines

Local Policy  Legal Policy

Board Policy EIA (Local)

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT - GRADING/PROGRESS REPORTS TO PARENTS 

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 reflects a student’s relative mastery of an assignment and that a sufficient number of grades are taken to support the grade average assigned. Guidelines for grading shall be clearly communicated to students and parents. 

The District shall permit a student who meets the criteria detailed in the grading guidelines a reasonable opportunity to redo an assignment or retake a test for which the student received a failing grade. 

Purpose of Grades and Reporting

The focus of a grading system is to measure student mastery on their content or course standards. The purpose of grades is to provide students with feedback about their progress and achievement, guide students about future course work, provide guidance to teachers for instructional planning and communicate progress to parents. 

The purpose of the report card is to report student achievement based on content or course standards, with work habits reported separately through comments/ codes.

Principles of Grading and Reporting  

When developing team grading guidelines, teachers should reflect on the Grading Principles and Actions to ensure their grades accurately reflect a student’s level of mastery of content or course standards.

Expectations for Developing Team Grading and Reporting Guidelines: 

• Classroom grading systems are focused on student learning and mastery of content standards.

• Teachers shall develop, through collaboration with their course-level team, a consistent and clearly defined grading guidelines document that will be submitted to the campus principal for approval and distributed to students and parents. 

• Students should be provided ample opportunities for non-graded practice and formative feedback throughout the learning process. 

• Teachers should consider how non-graded feedback can be embedded into the current grading system to increase student learning and decrease the number of students failing to master learning targets, significantly reducing the number of students in need of remediation/retake or redo of assignments and assessments.

• Grades should be logical, justifiable, and sufficient in number to assure that the reported grade is an accurate measure of the relative mastery of content or course standards.

• Student behavior and other non-academic skills are reported, separately through comments/codes.

• Teachers should review and return all graded work to students within a time frame that will benefit the student. This will provide students with feedback and allow them to identify any areas of weakness and arrange for tutorials, extra study sessions or make-up teach/redo.

• Students will be allowed adequate time for missed learning and opportunity to demonstrate mastery of content standards. (Making up missed work due to student absences is covered in our student handbook section under Academics.

*In order to be awarded a grade of “70” in a course or subject, a student must demonstrate 70% mastery of the content standards in any recording period.

Guidelines for Making Up Missed Work Due to Absences

• Students who are absent for any reason must check with each teacher the day the student returns from any absence to determine the:

  • Make-up assignments,

  • Specific dates for completing the work, and

  • Dates to complete any missed tests.

• When a student is absent from class due to illness, upon his/her return, the student will be allowed one day for each day of absence to make up the assigned work and/or take a quiz/exam. 

  • Previously scheduled assignments that were due on the day of the absence will be due on the day the student returns to school. 

  • Previously scheduled quizzes/exams will be administered on the day the student returns to school.

  • The student is allowed one (1) day for each day of an absence to make up assignments and quizzes/exams scheduled during their absence.

  • One (1) day of make-up time is allowed for each day of absence (Example: 2 days absent - 2 days to make up work; 4 days absent - 4 days to make up work, etc.). 

• Note: based on the A/B schedule at the high school level, the term “one day” is equivalent to one class period.