by Garth Meyer
Redondo Beach Unified School District boardmembers voted March 10 to set grading standards for its middle schools in core subjects, after input and debate across several meetings to establish what is known as standards-based grading.
Teachers met on March 13 to define what the specific grade structure is, with a goal of consistency per class, no matter the teacher.
“Our students are experiencing various grading scales at this time,” said District Superintendent Nicole Wesley. “… It can be 11 different ones. This makes for continuity.”
The policy change does not affect electives nor P.E., nor the high school. District elementary schools already use standards-based grading.
Traditional grading includes consideration of behavior and one-time performance, while standards-based focuses on mastery of specific skills.
The change for Redondo Beach middle schools will take effect for the 2027-28 school year. It updates a school board policy from 2010.
“It’s due, we need to work on this,” said Boardmember Hanh Archer. “If one teacher offers extra credit in a class then all teachers need to (for that class).”
Boardmembers voted 4-1 for teachers to create a new, uniform scale for middle school core classes; for example, does a B+ become an A- at 88% or 89%?
Boardmember Rachel Silverman-Nemeth voted no.
The March 13 meeting, a secondary professional development day, included middle school and high school teachers gathered in group sessions by department.
“It’s a little different for each,” said Eilen Leckenby, Redondo Beach Unified School District director of educational services, of how the day went. “A good number of the departments got to consistency on some courses. We just need to give people more time to continue to discuss and collaborate. We’ll continue the work throughout the spring.”
The grading issue first arose from Superintendent Wesley’s student advisory council, with kids saying that the same academic performance in a given class can mean a different grade down the hall, depending on the teacher.
Local students also served on a subsequent district grading policy review committee, along with middle-school teachers, high school teachers, assistant principals and other administrators.
Two staff surveys were sent out, one last November – to all middle school and high school teachers; and another survey was taken this January, of just middle school teachers.
The first grading policy review committee meeting defined rubrics – a criteria to review student work, such as on a 1-4 scale – and grade alignment across courses; for example if one teacher rounds up an 89.7 to 90 (for the next grade threshold, taking a B+ to an A-) and another teacher does not.
The second meeting included student focus groups. The third meeting reviewed the proposed grading policy again, in light of feedback from the committee.
For core content – Math, English/Language Arts, Science and Social Studies – the surveys found that 84% of middle school teachers already use standards-based grading.
March 13 was also for teachers to look into the possibility of standards-based grading at the high school.
“It may or may not be feasible,” Supt. Wesley said.
Late work is another issue in aligning grades standards – does one teacher accept late work from unexcused absences, and another does not?
All told, Boardmember Silveman-Nemeth questioned the move to standards-based.
“We’re not hiring robots, for example, we want teachers with personalities…” she said.
Supt. Wesley pointed out that district teachers are being asked to decide collaboratively, to come up with agreement by course. To all round up? Accept late work without penalty, or not? Allow retakes?
There is no prescribed scale from the superintendent’s office or the school board for the standards. That is what teachers began work on March 13.
“For our students, I want to remove that, ‘I hope I get this teacher vs. that teacher, because it’s not fair,’” Boardmember Archer said.
Under standards-based grading, teachers would not be required to be consistent on the amount of homework assigned.
Standards-based for social sciences would start in 2028-29.
On Feb. 24, the school board heard from Adams Middle School social studies teachers Keith Ellison – head coach of the RUHS football team – and Pete Rappaport.
“I’m not only here to oppose standards-based grading, but I’m primarily here because the process used to justify this has been built on misleading facts and numbers, and a staggering lack of transparency from our district,” Ellison said.
He asserted that the district’s grading committee included a majority of high school teachers who were against standards-based. The 84% statistic is misleading, he said. He maintained that the survey questions were to begin with.
“The district didn’t seek our input, nor did they want it. They created a survey to make it seem as if they had support for standards-based grading… The district is confusing usage for approval,” Ellison said.
“…This is like jumping out of a plane while still building the parachute.”
He called for the district to wait, and mandate a middle school committee to get “buy-in” from teachers.
Ellison stepped away from the podium at the board meeting to applause.
Rappaport, an Adams 8th-grade U.S. history teacher, put forth “four significant risks” for standards-based grading; grade inflation and reduced rigor, a “false sense of mastery” leading to “GPA shock in high school,” loss of teacher voice, the ‘vague nature of the proposal’ and “how this actually works.”
He also cited a “lack of clarity and buy-in.”
“Like asking a citizen to vote on a bill without letting them read the text,” Rappaport said.
He asked for a delay until a full grading policy is worked out for grades 6-12.
A senior at RUHS also gave input to the school board Feb. 24, from the perspective of tutoring two math students at Adams.
“The standardized four-point scale fails to capture the nuance of a student’s understanding…” she said. “ I’ve seen (my student) get a 2 out of 4 on a test for a fundamental misunderstanding of a concept. But I’ve also seen her get a 2 out of 4 for simple calculation errors.”
Supt. Wesley gave more comments to the board.
“There is no grading scale. We listened to the concerns of the middle school teachers,” she said. “We removed the standards-based grading scale, so the teachers can work on it on the 13th.”
“1-2-3-4 was in an earlier draft. We listened to the union who expressed concerns and we took it out.”
“The overwhelming majority of teachers are already using standards-based. We are aware of a department in a middle school that is still using traditional,” Wesley said. “There are many voices in favor of this.”
“All we want is consistency among teachers for the same course.”
Reducing points for late work is not part of standards-based grading – the idea being that to do so would discourage students from still getting the work done, and thus learning.
The high school has nine different grading scales, referring to where one specific letter grade begins and another ends.
An honors AP chemistry teacher at RUHS, Wilkin Lee, spoke at the March 10 board meeting about lab experiments graded differently, requesting two days to meet this summer to align class and lab assessments.
The next step in standards-based grading, Leckenby said, is “further opportunities for middle school teachers to support (the process)” and more time for middle and high school teachers to align their grading practices at the course level. ER
