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By Teresa Thomas Mail Tribune September 16. 2014 12:01AM Homework matters The Medford School District tweaked its proficiency grading practices this year to make homework count toward a student’s final grade. The Medford School District tweaked its proficiency grading practices this year to make homework count toward a student’s final grade. It’ll be up to the teachers to determine just how much weight homework holds. The grading changes are based on new legislation — House Bill 4150 — as well as teacher and parent feedback, said Todd Bloomquist, Medford's director of secondary education. House Bill 4150 replaced House Bill 2220, which required that districts provide parents with an annual report of their students’ mastery of Oregon's academic standards. This grade reflected only a student's performance on a summative assessment and did not take into account behavior and whether the student had done his or her homework. A team of teachers and administrators studied proficiency grading for a year before the district implemented it in 2013-14. Last year, teachers sent parents quarterly reports with information about how well their student met standards within each class. Instead of a student receiving a letter grade — A, B, C or Fail — the report indicated whether the student was not meeting, meeting, advancing or mastering the academic standards in a particular class, explained Debbie Connolly, supervisor of curriculum and assessment. The elementary grades have been “proficiency-based” for about 16 years, Connolly said. At that level, grades are reported on a scale of one (the student is not meeting state academic standards) to four (the student is exceeding academic standards). “It really clarified for kids and teachers what it is that kids have to be able to do and know,” Connolly said. The problem with the proficiency system as it was implemented last year at the secondary level was that students weren't penalized if their dog ate their homework, if they turned in homework late or if they didn't do it at all. “With proficiency grading, only the summative assessment and none of the practices counted toward the final grade,” said Bloomquist. “That’s great in theory, but it’s difficult to practice. When homework doesn't count toward the final grade, kids quickly catch on. Teachers were always fighting the kids who thought, ‘Hey, I don’t have to turn it in because it doesn't really matter.” This year, the state clarified its expectations in HB 4150, which states that districts are responsible for choosing “the form and content of their grading and reporting systems” and that behavior and homework can factor into a student’s final grade. “This allows us to use proficiency teaching and learning practices in the context of homework and deadlines,” Bloomquist said. Last spring, a district team began evaluating the district’s grading methodology and surveyed parents and teachers to see what they thought of proficiency grading. Nearly 650 parents responded to the online survey. Of those, 45 percent rated their experience with proficiency grading as “poor” and 32.3 percent rated it as “not good.” About 43 percent said the grading system impacted their student “not very positively,” and nearly 50 percent said they felt less informed of their student’s progress toward meeting state standards. At each school site, staff discussed what worked and what didn't and submitted their analysis to the advisory team, Bloomquist said. The advisory team used this information to build its new grading system, in which Professional Learning Communities determine how much homework and the summative assessments factor in to a student’s final grade. "Homework and formative assessment could be up to 70 percent of a student's grade," Bloomquist said.  Reach education reporter Teresa Thomas at 541-776-4497 or [email protected]. Follow her at www.twitter.com/teresathomas_mt. http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20140916/NEWS/140919775 © 2015 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->