Students and Parents Question New UMS Grading Policy

Within the past few weeks, Urbana Middle School has made a drastic change to its grading system. In this new system, students are unable to receive a grade lower than 50 percent on homework assignments. This means that students can skip an assignment but still get some credit. An argument can be made that the middle school students will be less inclined to do their homework because they still get points for doing nothing.

Even though this policy may seem enticing to unmotivated middle school students, Principal Scott Woods disagrees that this would affect work ethic.

“I would never want to implement a policy that would encourage students to not do school work,” said Woods.

Woods developed this new system to create a way to more accurately represent what students have learned.

“When a student gets a zero, it is very hard to ever overcome that negative score. This sets up some students to fail simply because of mistakes made early in the grading period. We want to have a fairer system of grading that more accurately reflects what students have learned,” said Woods.

The policy has met opposition from some parents, however.

“I have children that forget to do homework, but I don’t want them getting 50 percent credit to not do their work,” said middle school parent Suzanne D’Andria.

Discussions about a similar grading system being put into place at Urbana High School have been had for a number of years, with some classes piloting skill-based categories and standards based systems.

“I am definitely the type of person to always do my work, but if I would still get credit for an incomplete assignment it would make game nights easier,” said UHS Junior Miguel Fernandes. “Instead of staying up into the morning to finish tedious worksheets, I could just take the 50 percent and more easily make up the points later.”

The new system helps in situations like this, where students don’t have time to complete their assignments. But is it really fair? A student who at least tries to do an assignment could only get enough problems right to earn a 50 percent grade, but another student could ignore the assignment altogether and receive the same grade.

“I don’t think the new system is completely fair. Students should be held accountable and take the consequence of a zero if they decide to not complete a homework assignment,” said Senior Josh Hogan.

This new policy has valid arguments on both sides, but it is still in the early stages and has not been in effect long enough to see what will come of it.

Woods is open to any opinions or concerns about the change.

“Any time decisions are made that impact students at UMS, I receive feedback from families,” said Woods. “I have had very few families question this policy change. Those who have had concerns have been very thoughtful about their concerns. I always welcome that feedback, and I appreciate that our families feel comfortable coming to me with their concerns.”