Standards Based Grading

As of the 2020-21 school year, Clearwater USD #264 utilizes Standards Based Grading in grades Kindergarten through 4th grade. The following information is intended to aid parents and guardians in understanding the grading procedures for their students.

What is standards based learning?

When the emphasis of a classroom is on standards-based learning, teachers and students focus and reflect on mastery of skills and content. Teachers plan and implement lessons based on standards that every student must learn. Standards are outlined by the Kansas Department of Education. Every content area has standards that students are expected to learn. Teachers present “learning targets” that are aligned to the standards to lead students to the goals they must meet for mastery. Learning targets provide clarity to students so that they are aware of the targeted outcomes for lessons. Based upon students’ needs for differentiation, teachers will provide multiple opportunities for students to meet learning targets over the course of instructional time. A standards-based approach allows parents and students to understand more clearly what is expected of students and how to make students how to help be successful.

What is standards based grading?

Standards-based grading is the outcome or product of standards-based learning. Grading allows educators to measure students’ mastery of the learning objectives, or how well students understand the content in class. It is a method of reporting what students have learned and how they demonstrated their learning of the Kansas Academic Standards set forth by the Kansas Department of Education. Standards help guide teachers in their instruction and specify what all students should know, understand and be able to do by the end of the school year. Instead of traditional percentages of work completion grades, students are graded on a rubric or scale of their mastery of the standards and learning targets.

What is the purpose of Standards Based Grading?

The purpose of standards based learning and grading is to remove the focus on the accumulation of points and shift to what matters most in school- mastery of learning. This shift allows teachers the ability to emphasize essential standards of their grade level. SBG provides more accurate measures of students' learning by reporting what standards they have mastered and what standards they have yet to be proficient in. An additional purpose of a Standards-Based grading system is to provide more detailed feedback to parents, students, and teachers regarding progress that is being made toward specific learning standards at a given grade level.

Why change?

Traditional letter grades will often take into account a combination of many factors: homework, extra credit, attendance, work habits, and the level of progress. When you report grades with all these factors combined, letter grades become subjective and less accurate in conveying students’ achievement. The standards-based system measures how well individual students are doing solely in relation to identified standards and eliminates many of the factors that can distort the final traditional grade as a true indicator of mastery. Standards based learning and grading provides parents, teachers, and students an understanding of what an individual student has mastered and what they need to continue to work toward learning. By continually assessing students on their mastery of standards, teachers are provided information to help generate a plan for continued growth for each student.