By John Oldach
Last Tuesday on November 8, 2011, HHS teachers had a professional day to discuss the current grading system.  They proposed making certain parts of a grade, like homework, count for less.  They also discussed making a more uniform system of grading so that students and parents can expect more consistency from the teachers.

History teacher Steve Simoes stated, “A lot of the discussion is around the purpose and the value of homework, and that as a district we are trying to come up with how important homework should be relative to other things in terms of percentages.  You wouldn’t want one teacher teaching the same subject and counting homework fifty percent and another teacher teaching the same exact subject counting it zero percent.  So we are looking for more uniformity along those lines.”

Assistant principal Ashoke Ghosh said, “There’s two main goals that we have this year, and one of them is to review our assessment policy and try to get to a place where we are more consistent with grades, specifically with [teachers who teach the same course].”

Teachers also talked about making retake policies uniform, as well as the possibility of calculating grades in a way that is not simply the average of assessment scores.

Ghosh, however, stated that “Before we can do that, we all have to be on the same page.”

There was also some discussion about making all of the grades open and visible on iPass next semester, but it is unclear whether or not there will be enough agreement on policy amongst the teachers for this to happen so soon.