Frequently Asked Questions

Standards-Based Learning creates consistency, clarity, and accuracy in how we, as a unified District, provide high-quality educational experiences, assess, and support students in moving toward grade-level standards. These shifts are imperative for us to strengthen our instructional focus directly address the historic inequities in grading practices (e.g., non-academic factors and homework completion equated into grade)

Additionally at San Diego Unified, we are working to build anti-biased, anti-racist and restorative school communities where we collectively eliminate inequities, barriers and disproportionalities that prevent students from receiving equitable access, experience, and outcomes.

Standards-Based Learning is one tool we have for moving towards an anti-racism, anti-biased and restorative educational system and honoring the diverse assets of students in our schools. 

As a unified District, we are all on the road to implementing a Standards-Based Learning framework of teaching learning and grading. We will continue to reinforce the best practices already introduced and expand our efforts to include a greater focus on reporting practices. School site implementation is personalized to the point of need for its teachers, students and community. Schools will continue to partner with their students, families, and district resources to share, engage, and further their implementation practices.

Critical Concepts are a tool that support educators in creating an equitable system of instruction and grading and to support all students in accessing the most essential, grade-level content in each course. 

In 2017, SDUSD partnered with Marzano Resources to learn how standards could be bundled together to create Critical Concepts. Many teachers and central office staff worked to create year-long maps, units, and lessons around these Critical Concepts for ELA, Math, and Science. 

In 2020-2021, the Critical Concepts were revised (and new Critical Concepts were created for History/Social Science, CCTE, VAPA, and Physical Education) along with their accompanying Proficiency Scales, which articulate students’ learning progressions and inform how teachers plan lessons and assess students. 

During this same school year, a group of teachers (ELA, Science, Math, and History/Social Science fellows) worked with central office staff to create or revise Critical Concepts and Proficiency Scales. The SDUSD Critical Concepts and Proficiency Scales are a living document and will be refined annually as educators continue to give feedback. 

A Standards-Based Learning system improves the clarity, consistency, and accuracy of assessment across our district. Through curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices grounded in clear and consistent prioritized learning goals (Critical Concepts) that remove non-academic factors from the grade, we work together to ensure all students have access to a uniform, minimum expectation in their courses and multiple opportunities and ways to show their progress towards proficiency (Level 3 and 4) by the end of a grading period.

Equitable grading practices, as noted in Grading for Equity (Feldman, 2018), guide our District to achieve best practices overtime. Some of these best practices include grades that are: 

• mathematically sound

• value knowledge -- not environment or behavior 

• support student hope and a growth mindset 

• lift the veil on how to succeed by making grades simpler and more transparent, and

• support students’ intrinsic motivation and self-regulation

Additionally a best practice in standards based learning is to prioritize more recent evidence when translating scores to grades. Students are not expected to be at grade level standard when they first start practicing a new skill or concept. Over time, however, student evidence should show growth toward proficiency. Prioritizing more recent evidence doesn't penalize students for initial attempts, but honors and celebrates their growth toward proficiency by the end of a reporting term.

Proficiency scales are tools that inform instruction and guide teachers, students, and families in next steps for learning. The numbers on a proficiency scale (1-4) help to inform students and families of where a student is in their learning as it relates to a particular Critical Concept. 

Best practice is for educators to provide regular access to the “Level 3” target for all of their students (opportunity precedes skill) and use the “Level 2” only when needed to help provide targeted or small group instruction when we notice a student is not yet reaching grade-level/course standard, or Level 3. 

In 2020, SDUSD approved a new grading policy. That policy articulates that: 

• Non-academic factors should be removed from the academic grade 

• Behaviors, such as punctuality and work habits, constitute part of the student's citizenship grade 

• Multiple means should be used to assess mastery

• Students should have opportunities for revision and reassessment 

With the support of appropriate scaffolding, all learners, including multi-language learners and students receiving special education services are capable of achieving mastery on a proficiency scale. For example, Integrated English Language Development (iELD) is an integral part of a comprehensive program for every English learner to meet the linguistic and academic goals at their grade level. iELD takes place in all content area classrooms where the CA ELD Standards are used in tandem with the state-adopted academic content standards. iELD includes specifically designed academic instruction in English (SDAIE) strategies. Programs like these have and will continue to support every student in their mastery of Critical Concepts within a proficiency scale.

SDUSD is a Hewlett grant recipient that supports us in partnering with UCSD to specifically track the implementation process and the outcomes of our Standards-Based Grading work. Student grades at reporting periods are one of various data points being analyzed to help guide and refine this work, as we move forward. 

SDUSD just reached the first grading period (progress reporting) for 2021-2022, and we are continuing to improve practice and implementation processes as we gather data and feedback. 

SDUSD is providing training to all secondary sites in partnership with Marzano Resources, an educational research and training group that has worked with districts around the country on the implementation of Standards-Based Learning. Participants then bring this learning back to their sites to build capacity amongst the whole staff. 

Our District is also providing varied opportunities for educators to meet in content-area teams to learn more about the prioritized standards (i.e., Critical Concepts) and proficiency scales that help to ground this work and achieve our aim of consistency, clarity, accuracy, and equity in our assessment and grading practices. For example, we held a Summer Institute, in which each core content area offered a 3-hour session to orient educators to the critical concepts and proficiency scales.

Our District will continue to seek out as many spaces as possible to support educators and administrators with training that will move us forward, as a Unified team, towards implementation of best practices with Standards-Based Learning.

The District organizes centralized training and supports for sites implementing best practices in Standards-Based Learning and Grading at our middle and high schools. Educators shape practices at the site and individual classroom levels that are appropriate for their student populations and subject areas. Teachers within a school can determine: 

1. The length of the grace period for each assignment

2. Which assignments may be submitted within the grace period for late work

3. How many times an assignment can be resubmitted

Because teachers shape and personalize the implementation practices of SBL within their unique classroom, it is best to reach out directly to your student’s teacher in regards to specific questions around instruction and/or grading. If you do not feel that your student’s gradebook reflects sufficient information to understand how your student is progressing, the grading policy does indicate that parents/guardians shall have the opportunity to meet with their student’s teacher to discuss grades and support strategies. 

The District has compiled a documented table of districts, informed by known partnerships and/or research, who we know are engaging in this work. This list is not exhaustive, but it does highlight some of the many districts also leading this work.