ROCKWOOD SWITCHED TO STANDARDS
based grading in the 2011-2012 school year, and this year adopted non-academic indicators (NAIs) in the middle schools.
NAIs reflect a student’s character in three categories: actively engages in learning, task completion of coursework and responsibility for work environment. Students earn between a one and a four, one being minimal, two developing, three proficient and four advanced.
MHS and other district schools piloted NAIs last year, but Rockwood decided they weren’t ready for implementation at the high schools.
Dr. Jim Wipke, executive director of secondary education, said NAIs are part of “Best Grading Practices” the district wants to reach.
“Non-academic indicators say ‘we do value work ethic’,” Dr. Wipke said.
Rockwood’s website calls NAIs “factors that describe the actions and behaviors that support academic achievement.”
Dr. Wipke said the middle schools’ pilots of NAIs went well, so the district implemented the policy this year.
In the high schools, however, NAIs received mixed reviews.
“We don’t have it perfect for high schools,” Wipke said. “We want to provide kids with some consistency, so the rules don’t change drastically. We’re looking at the NAI’s we’ve implemented this year in the middle schools, and asking ourselves ‘how does it need to look different?’”
Ken O’Connor, an independent education consultant and former teacher who advocates standards based grading, said Rockwood seems to be going in the right direction.
“The biggest problem with the way we’ve done grading traditionally is we end up with very inaccurate grades,” O’Connor said. “Grades include both achievement and behavior, so there are students with inflated grades, and the reverse is students who have deflated grades, whose grades have been reduced because of behavioral penalties.”
O’Connor said small grades like homework put the the focus on individual grades.
“It makes it appear to everybody that school is about accumulating points,” O’Connor said. “It’s really about the learning process.”
Ed Bolton, chemistry teacher, piloted the NAI program last year.
“The idea of some sort of clear reflection for students how they’re doing non-academically is an interesting and probably good idea,” Bolton said.
Bolton said there would be a problem if the NAIs were included in GPA.
“As a teacher, I feel like I’m scoring someone subjectively,” Bolton said. “And if it was going to a college, I don’t feel comfortable changing your future—colleges might not accept you because of that character judgment.”
He said task completion is an issue.
“If you turn in all of your homework, that’s your effort,” Bolton said. “Students who didn’t do any homework and got As on all their tests, and I’m going to say they’re a bad citizen?”
Senior Leyna Stemle, who was in Bolton’s class last year, said NAIs worked well.
“I think they were accurate,” Stemle said. “They show if you put in the effort in, and not if you just get the grades.”
Stemle said NAIs will make some students work harder, but not all.
“There are students who would care and do work to learn,” Stemle said. “But others if you don’t have to do it, they’re not gonna do it.”
Principal Dr. Greg Mathison said it’s important to take it slow with NAIs and to listen to feedback.
“Truthfully with non-academic indicators it comes down to what teachers need,” Dr. Mathison said. “That’s clearly communicated work habits that we want. If we’re going to have a system, we need to make sure it’s a system that works.”