This year, every class at BHS will now have the same names for categories in their gradebooks and the same point values, with some variation decided by individual teachers within the prescribed limits as follows:
Summative Assessment (tests, essays, final projects) must be worth between 70-100%
of the final grade.
Formative Practice (classwork, homework, quizzes) must be worth between 0-20% of
the final grade.
Habits of Work and Learning or “HOWLs” (participation, preparation) must be worth
between 0-10% of the final grade.

This is the most recent step in BHS’ move to a proficiency-based grading system. Principal Sabrina Westdijk is spearheading the work and says we are moving towards a system where grades represent “what we feel we can confidently say students can know and can do.”

It is not widely accepted or known, however, that the meaning of grades is to represent aptitude in certain subjects.

According to a BHS survey, 72.1% of students believe that effort and how hard a student tries is more important to their learning than what a student can actually know and can do.

Apsa Dieng ‘26 questioned the fairness of this new policy.

“Some people just aren’t great test takers, and so they should have the opportunity to get good grades in other ways,” Dieng said.

The administration acknowledges that significant weighting on assessments can place a lot of pressure on students.

“If you get one shot and that’s your final grade, it can feel punitive, and the focus is on a number. It’s not about the goal, which is learning,” Principal Westdijk said.

Westdijk points out that the new grading policy recommends that teachers provide students “multiple opportunities to demonstrate knowledge or skills being assessed”. However, it isn’t clear how this will be implemented in the classroom, especially since common standards and assessments are not scheduled to be completed until 2027. Teachers were made aware of the new grading policy at an in-service meeting less than a week before the beginning of school.

In Mike Havens’ Pre-calculus class, he has always weighted tests as 80% of a student’s grade. He understands how this policy is motivating for higher level students. Havens did things differently in his Pre-algebra class where homework and quizzes shared equal weighting in the gradebook.

“Students who receive an A in class are the ones who did well on assessments and quizzes anyway. They’re not affected by the grading policy,” Havens said. “It’s the students who are trying really hard, and the retention level just isn’t there, and their math understanding isn’t there – those are the ones who are being punished, because before, they would pass my class with maybe a C, maybe a D, but they worked really hard to earn that. Now, because there’s more emphasis on quizzes, they are going to have to try even harder to pass the class. Or what I’m fearful of is that they’ll just give up, thinking that there’s no hope, being that they have a 50 halfway through the year.”

Havens said he understands from the administration’s standpoint how this new uniformity in grading will make things less confusing for parents and students.

“I totally understand where they’re coming from (the administration), but I think it’s important to be aware of the different pathways that students are taking,” Havens said. “I think that our grading policy, the way that it was before, was in our best efforts as professionals to accommodate students.”

Oscar Cranich ‘26 agrees that this new grading policy will most likely impact students who are struggling academically because they get a boost in their grades from things like group projects and classwork.

“Students who were doing well before are still going to be doing well,” Cranich said.

Dieng also worries that when there are significantly fewer points given to homework, students will be less likely to do the homework and just hope they do well on the tests.

“There’s so much pressure,” Dieng said. “They’re more likely to cheat.”

Westdijk said it’s “absolutely possible” that students will stop doing their homework. She says schools that shift to standards-based grading often have an “implementation dip”.

“Students have learned to play the game of school a certain way,” Westdijk said. “And then the rules suddenly change, and that means that what they do needs to change.”

Westdijk said that most schools find that students begin doing the homework once they realize that they need to do it to pass the tests. Westdijk said that formative practice and homework are not a good reflection of what a student individually knows and can do because students can cheat off a friend or use AI.

Oscar Cranich ‘26 agrees that in our current system, students are more focused on gaming the grading system than actually learning content.

“I know a person who memorized the answers to a multiple-choice choice quiz for a class. [It was] an ABCD quiz and they memorized 20 [answers] in a row,” Cranich said.

In addition, Westdijk says grading homework can be unfair and discourage learning.

“So if I’m being introduced to a concept in a class for the very first time, and I’ve had homework assignments, and I am genuinely confused still – I do not know what’s going on yet – I’m essentially being punished for making mistakes while I’m learning,” Westdijk said. “It puts students in a tough place of feeling like, if I take risks or I don’t understand, it’s going to bring my average down.”

The first quarter of school ends on October 24, so we will soon start to see what effect this new grading system will have on BHS. Havens says he will “cross that bridge when [he] get[s] there”, but he is concerned that we will see a lot more students feeling that they’re not being successful in school.

“And I fear that may translate into further academics and maybe into the future,” Havens said. “You know, I really, I’ve always preached, if you just give, give it your best, then good things will happen. And I always felt that way, and that was my grading policy kind of helped reflect that for the students that are struggling. I did it for that. And now I’m fearful that even if you try your best and it’s not good enough at a ninth-grade level, that it could be detrimental long term. That’s my fear.”