As you may have heard last week, OSPI released COVID-19 grading guidelines for schools. At the heart of  these guidelines was “Do No Harm”, meaning no student’s grades should be negatively impacted by the closure of schools. As soon as these guidelines were released, teachers, principals and district leaders began working to define and articulate the grading policy for the Puyallup School District.  A more detailed announcement about grading will come this week, but I want to give you a few key highlights that have been determined:

High School Credit Bearing Classes:
All 9th students will receive a letter grade for each of their classes.  (And any 8th grader in a high school credit bearing class.)

The grade a student had on March 13 (IPR#4) will serve as their baseline. Their final semester grade cannot be lower than that.

From this point forward, student work will be assessed and recorded as normal in the gradebook.  At the end of the semester, teachers will compare student grades in the gradebook with their IPR #4 grade, the higher of the two will be given as the final semester grade.

If the student completes work at a level that shows advancing skills and knowledge, the final course grade may be higher than their IPR#4 grade.

No failing grades will be given.  If a student had an “F” at the time of the closure and has not provided a body of evidence that can be used to measure learning and understanding of essential course content, they will be given an Incomplete (INC). Students with an INC will be required to complete essential course content through Summer School, a subsequent course, or other credit retrieval opportunities.

Seventh and Eighth grade students
Will continue get performance based feedback. So, it is important that they are logging on, completing to standard the weekly lesson, and communicating with each of their teachers.   The work they complete is important for their preparation for next year.