Lehighton Area School District is set to revamp its grading system for the 2024-25 academic year.

The change, according to director of instructional technology and curriculum development Gretchen Laviolette, comes after extensive discussions and feedback from both students and staff, aiming to create a more balanced and fair evaluation method for students’ academic performance.

The current grading system, which assigns 60% of grades to assessments, 30% to graded work, and 10% to homework, has been in place across all grades from 1 to 12.

“That current system has been in place for 10-15 years and it became evident early this school year during some meetings we were having that it needed to be looked at,” Laviolette said.

A committee consisting of elementary, middle, and high school teachers, along with building and districtwide administrators, convened over four meetings between February and May to assess the existing system.

The primary goals of the committee were to evaluate whether there was a need to adjust the grading categories and their definitions, change the percentages attributed to each category and/or set requirements for the number and type of assignments.

Feedback from both students and department chairs played a significant role in shaping the new proposal.

“The comments from students were really eye opening and they put a lot of thought into the responses,” Laviolette said. “They really felt the homework percentage needed to go up as an incentive for them to do it. At 10%, students realized they could not do homework and their grade really would not be impacted that much.”

The new grading plan proposes a breakdown of assessments making up 50% of a student’s grade, graded work 35% and participation 15%.

“We changed the name of the homework category because we realize there are some classes that do not really have homework, but they still have that participation component,” Laviolette said. “Are they participating in class, taking notes and not sleeping or on their phone.”

Moreover, there will be a minimum requirement of nine assignments per marking period, distributed equally across the three categories. Each teacher will need to enter at least three grades in each of the assessments, graded work, and participation categories.

To ensure a smooth transition, the district plans to offer professional development focused on creating meaningful homework, ensuring proper grade distribution, avoiding disparities between passing and failing rates, correctly categorizing assignments, informing students about formative versus summative assessments and developing common assessments and final exams.

The proposed changes are designed to promote a more comprehensive evaluation of student performance, reducing the over-reliance on high-stakes testing.

“A lot of students out there will tell you they don’t do well on assessments,” Laviolette said. “Sometimes you freeze up. This change puts an equal weight on the graded work and participation throughout the marking period. Our hope is the students will see that the district asked for our opinion and they really listened to us and took our suggestions to heart.”