by Andrew Fenner ’27

In June, MCPS approved a new grading policy that abolished the old rounding system and pivoted to a less generous but more equitable averaging system for semester grades. In the new system, students’ semester grades are calculated by the numerical average of their two quarter grades.

“We hope the impact will be negligible, but in reality, there may be an adjustment period,” said math department head Jordan Bennett. The belief that grades may drop is shared among students. In a survey of 550 Warrior students across grade levels, 48 percent of students predicted the new grading system would make their grades worse.

But students are not without teacher support in response to the new policy’s challenges. “As the department head and speaking to the rest of the department, we’ve been way more on top of students’ percentages,” Christine McKeldin said. “We’ve been really encouraging students to get their grade percentage up from a borderline letter grade to a more solid percentage grade that will give them more leeway next quarter.”

In the previous rounding system, a 79.5 percent for the quarter grade held the same weight as an 85 percent when calculating semester grades. Under the new system, the actual percentage of a student’s grade is what counts, meaning it is in the student’s best interest to strive for the highest percentage they can get each quarter in order to have a higher average when it comes time to calculate semester grades.

For many years, MCPS has been an outlier in the state in terms of its grading system. While other counties more quickly made a transition back to a more rigorous grading system after Covid, MCPS was slow to adopt a more demanding system. “This policy also put us on par with other counties in the state,” Bennett said. “It will also help give us a clearer picture of how our students are performing.”

Like most school systems across the country, MCPS has struggled with student absenteeism,  which is something that teachers hope the new policy will help remedy. “In past years, I had a lot of students who would come to class every day in the first quarter,” McKeldin said. “They would get an A or B, and then I wouldn’t see them again until next semester. This new policy will hopefully combat that issue.”

The policy changes also include a strict five-day submission deadline across the board for all coursework, which many teachers feel has lifted a huge weight from their shoulders. “Not only does the grading policy have a positive influence on the classroom environment, but on teachers’ mental health as well,” World Language teacher Jordana Smith said. “Having a large number of students turn in a bunch of work, that is weeks old, while having to grade current work at the end of the marking period, is not just overwhelming but exhausting.”

English department head Lynette Evans-Williams isn’t totally sold on the new policy. Included in the new system is a rule that requires all teachers to return student work within ten days of the date it was submitted. “It puts pressure on teachers in terms of detailed feedback and perhaps in how much they assign,” she said. “For example, in English classes, instead of requiring an outline and draft of a paper, the teacher may only require one.”

Evans-Williams added that while it means less work for both students and teachers, it means students will receive less detailed feedback. In a class with a focus on writing, less feedback can hinder a lot of students’ work.