North Country Union High School

Habits of Work and Learning (HOWLs)

In many traditional grading systems, behaviors such as attendance, class participation, or the ability to complete work on time are factored into final grades alongside scores on tests and assignments. While attendance and class participation are vitally important to success in school, averaging together behaviors and learning can obscure academic progress and achievement, making it much harder to determine what students are excelling at or struggling with. Has the student failed to grasp critically important concepts, or did she simply not turn her homework in on time? Is it a learning problem or a behavioral problem? And what kind of support does the student need to address the issue and succeed in the course?

While student work habits, behaviors, and character traits are highly valued and essential to academic achievement, they will be communicated separately from academic performance. Habits of work and learning grades will be reported alongside academic grades and appear on progress reports, end-of-term report cards and transcripts.