STANDARDS BASED GRADING AT SWANSBORO HS

WHAT IS STANDARDS BASED GRADING (SBG)?

SBG is a grading system that measures students' mastery of clearly defined course objectives. It allows
students multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery of content knowledge. Once mastery is
demonstrated they will receive full credit for the standard and are NOT penalized if it took them longer
than other students to show mastery. The goal of SBG is to give students accurate feedback about
which skills or concepts they have mastered, and which still need work.
WHY USE STANDARDS BASED GRADING?
1. It teaches students what quality work looks like.
2. It does not penalize students who may take longer to learn material.
3. It encourages students to continue working with material that they did not master instead of just
moving on and never learning the material.
4. It makes the student responsible for his or her own grade and gives them opportunities to improve
their grade.
HOW DOES IT WORK AT SWANSBORO HIGH?
1. Content is divided up in to small, student friendly standards. {EX - I can distinguish between
independent and dependent variables in an experiment.} Students will have the standards for a unit
ahead of time.
2. Students are assessed frequently on the standards they are working on in class. Assessments
will be organized by standard so it will be easy for the student and teacher to determine what
content/standards have and have not been mastered. Students will not receive numeric test scores, but
will receive one of two different notations for each standard being assessed. Those notations are as
follows:

M - Mastery = The student has demonstrated that they fully understand the standard
being assessed.

DM - Developing Mastery = The student has not shown full understanding of the
standard and that there is still room for improvement.
M (Mastery) is the only notation that receives credit. Students must continue working on standards
until they demonstrate M (Mastery) to receive credit. Grades for standards will appear as 100's or 0's in
PowerSchool. A '100' will be assigned if a student has mastered a standard and a '0' will be assigned if
they have not yet mastered a standard. This is sometimes very frustrating for students and parents
because they do not understand the 'all or nothing' idea. However, the goal and expectation for
our students is to demonstrate full understanding of smaller segments of material.
3. Students are given the opportunity to complete reassessments on unmastered standards (DM).
Students are eligible to take reassessments when they have completed additional work with the
standard(s). These additional assignments may include completing missing notebook assignments,
completing a set of additional practice questions, receiving tutoring, etc. Once this work is done
students will sign up to take their reassessments. These reassessments are custom made and will ONLY
cover the standards that they have not yet mastered. Reassessments are completed before school, after
school, during lunch, and during Pirate Seminar. There is no limit on the amount of times a student can
attempt to reassess a standard within a 6 weeks period, however, students must demonstrate that they

have completed additional work in preparation for their reassessments. Once a student shows mastery
of a standard on a reassessment the '0' in PowerSchool for that standard will be changed to a '100.'
Again, the idea is NOT to penalize students who need a little additional practice before they master a
standard.
HOW ARE NUMERIC GRADES ASSIGNED?
Numeric grades are calculated based on the number of standards mastered compared to the number of
standards covered during that 6 week grading period. For example, if 10 standards have been covered
in class and a student has shown mastery on 9 of those standards their score for standard mastery
portion of the course would be 9/10 or 90%.
Report Card Grades
Standard:
80% - Mastery of the standards covered (as described above) and large projects
20% - Other (notebook checks, homework, classwork, small projects, quizzes, etc)
Honors:
85% - Mastery of the standards covered (as described above) and large projects
15% - Other (notebook checks, homework, classwork, small projects, quizzes, etc)
QUOTES FROM STUDENTS EXPERIENCES USING SBG
"I like SBG because it allowed me to fully understand the topics we were learning. With normal
grading I would not know what I missed and in the long run would not understand the topics
fully."
"I liked it because I am not the best at science so I kept getting second chances and it made me
go back and try to learn it so I could pass the retests."
"I got a chance to keep practicing a standard until I actually understood it without failing my
tests."
PLEASE SIGN BELOW STATING THAT YOU (PARENT) AND YOUR STUDENT
UNDERSTANDS HOW SBG WORKS AND THAT IT WILL BE USED IN THIS BIOLOGY
CLASSROOM.

Student Name (printed): _______________________________________________________________

Student Signature: ___________________________________________________________________

Parent Signature: ____________________________________________________________________