The site will be updated every two weeks, if there is more information to share. All updates will be incorporated throughout the other sections of this website, but this section will compile all updates for a convenient, at-a-glance summary. Please reach out to Assessment Specialist John Scopelleti if you have any questions!
5/12/2023 Updates
2023 - 2024: John Scopelleti created this rubric for doing laundry as a way to help explain the new grade scale of Exemplary, Advanced, Proficient, Developing, Unsatisfactory, and No Credit.
4/28/2023 Updates
The Student Perspective: John Scopelleti completed focus groups in which he reviewed the key ideas for next year's grading plan with students. Here is the document they reviewed, and here is an overview of these focus groups. See the second tab of this Sheet to see the demographics of the students involved in these discussions.
The Staff Perspective: Staff questions and comments after our 4/10 PD and a recent union meeting are now available.
2023 - 2024: The sample report card and grade scale explainer have been updated to reflect the grade scale for next year.
2023 - 2024: The proposed language for the grading section of the 2023-2024 SST handbook is now available. SST staff will continue to review this language until the final meeting of the Handbook Committee on 5.11.2023.
4/7/2023 Updates
The Employer and College Perspective: John Scopelleti was able to interview another co-op employer. Her feedback was added to the summary information from employers.
The Employer and College Perspective: This article from NPR discusses how some colleges are actually eliminating grades for first-year students. Some of the colleges involved include Roger Williams University, UNH, URI, Baylor University, UT-Austin, Reed, and Brown.
2023 - 2024: Slight adjustments were made to the grade scale explainer and the sample report card to reflect updates to the grading terms to be used next year.
3/24/2023 Updates
The Employer and College Perspective: This article shares recent research into how some college and university admissions officials view standards-based grading.
The Staff Perspective: Staff questions and comments after our 3/15 grading professional development are now available.
2023 - 2024: The goal is to provide a finalized plan for 2023-2024 by the start of the April break. Stay tuned!
3/10/2023 Updates
Created the 2023-2024 section of the website for easy access to all documents related to the grading plan for the next school year.
The Employer and College Perspective: On February 23, 2023, the Aurora Institute and the NCAA hosted this webinar to talk about how colleges are determining eligibility for standards-based/competency-based transcripts. Here are the slides if you want to review this material at your own pace. The big takeaway is that enough high schools are using a standards-based system of grading that the NCAA has a plan in place to process them.
2/27/2023 Updates
Click here for the proposal for grading changes for the 2023-2024 school year. There will be a lot of opportunities for students, parents/caregivers, and staff to offer feedback on this during the month of March. Please read the proposal for details on how to offer your thoughts and questions, or simply reach out to John Scopelleti at jscopelleti@ssvotech.org.
2/17/2023 Updates
Additional Resources: Inclusion of a list of the schools with whom John Scopelleti has consulted over the past few months. Addition of a new book and two articles for further reading.
Stay tuned for a detailed proposal for grading changes for the 2023-2024 school year! That will be shared with educators, students, and parents/caregivers and posted here after the February break.
2/3/2023 Updates
The Student Perspective: The first round of student focus groups has concluded. John Scopelleti spoke with over 70 students in Grades 9-12 over the past few months to talk about grading. The questions that were asked are available here, and this Sheet provides a demographic breakdown of students who were involved in these voluntary discussions.
The Employer and College Perspective: John connected with more colleges and universities over the past couple of weeks, and the summary of those conversations is available here.
1/20/2023 Updates
The Staff Perspective: During Professional Learning Community (PLC) meetings, teachers revisited the topics of an alternate grade scale and eligibility, because they had the largest gap between shop teachers and academic teachers. These further conversations revealed a shift that can be seen in the red text here.
The Employer Perspective: During January of 2023, Assessment Specialist John Scopelleti was able to speak with several employers. This slide includes a summary of these conversations.