Avon Middle and High Schools are implementing a new report card grading rubric that brings increased consistency, efficiency and accountability to the process of assessing a student’s learning behavior in the classroom.
The Student Responsibility and Learner Behavior Rubric, which was piloted last year, assesses student achievement on a 1 to 4 scale in three main behavior areas: responsibility, actively involved and effort.
In the past, said Middle School Principal Jennifer Miller, the process of communicating a student’s behavior in the classroom made use of comments like “your child is a pleasure to have in class” or “your child needs to complete assigned homework.”
“Teachers had too many comments to choose from and as a school we needed to really look at what was important to communicate to parents and what needed to be the focus to help students be successful learners,” Miller explained. “Now, with the new rubric, we have three specific priority areas that we as a school have agreed are important to a student’s personal and academic success.”
Alexis Kyle, a Middle School Math Academic Intervention Services Teacher who helped create the rubric, said it more effectively communicates to parents what specific areas a child may need additional support in.
“Sometimes there are students that just genuinely struggle with the topic or the subject but if they’re working their tail off, it’s a way to communicate to a parent that their student is putting in their best effort,” said Kyle. “Or, on the flip side, if your child is performing well in this subject, but they really could be putting in more effort or be more engaged, it helps us communicate that, too.”
High School Principal Ryan Wagner was of a like mind.
“It brings consistency across subject areas to the process of assessing behavior based competencies and it’s very understandable for parents,” he said. “Each student in each class is graded in those three areas so parents can see how it aligns with their grade. If students are getting 1s and 2s, their grade is probably not that strong whereas if they’re getting 3s and 4s, it’s probably better, so parents can see that correlation in a very clear way.”
The rubric has the added benefits of making clear to students what behavior is expected of them in all their different classrooms and in getting all teachers on the same page when it comes to providing meaningful feedback about a student’s learning behaviors.
“The rubric will also facilitate a team approach to helping a student be more successful in school,” Kyle explained. “At the Middle School, we are reviewing this student rubric data to see which students are consistently earning a 1, 2, 3 or 4 in the areas of responsibility, active involvement, and effort. This is a great opportunity to dialogue about students and have teachers share with colleagues and families what they are doing in their classrooms to help students be more successful.”
In creating the rubric, Kyle said she and her colleagues in the Middle and High Schools made sure to prioritize behavior areas that would be broadly relevant to students later in life, regardless of what career path they choose.
“It carries through, I think, to what skills we’d want them to have as adults in any kind of job or career,” said Kyle. “These are the skills they need to be successful adults. They need to be able to show up on time every day, be prepared every day, be engaged and put forward effort every day.”
Looking ahead, Miller feels the new grading system will be particularly useful in identifying those “under the radar” students who may not be obviously struggling in a particular area who could still benefit from additional support to help them reach their fullest potential.
“It’s the students who are earning or performing at a level 2 that we need to move to a level 3 in the priority areas highlighted in the rubric,” she said. “Many of our students are obtaining passing grades, but with a little more care and targeted intervention, these students can obtain higher levels of achievement.”
The Student Responsibility and Learner Behavior Rubric, above, assesses student achievement on a 1 to 4 scale in three main behavior areas: responsibility, actively involved and effort.