Administration has once again adjusted the grading policy for the 2024-2025 school year, attempting to find a policy that best reflects the accomplishments of its students. The most notable changes are for gradebook weighting and the optimal number of graded assignments per quarter. 

Madison now includes formative scores in final grades along with summatives as opposed to last year, where only summative grades were reported on final transcripts. The formative and summative grades have a 30-70 weighting, which also will increase the total number of assignments in the gradebook. This change requires students to be able to show that they are learning and paying attention to content throughout a unit. However, there is still a lot of confusion on whether formative grades will still count for final grades or if they can be taken out.

Another big change being made to the grading policy is the shift away from the four-point scale to the 100-point scale. Now, the percentages associated with the letter grade “A” is 93 to 100, “A-” is 90 to 92 and so on. However, the actual value of work turned in should not have changed. The move away from the four-point scale signifies the shift away from fully mastery-based learning and grading. According to the P. K. Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida, the four-point scale does a better job recognizing growth over time, while the 100-point scale values the full scope of a student’s work over the year.

Finally, there was a change in the number of graded assignments required for each quarter, which decreased from nine to seven assignments. This made the maximum percentage a single assignment can count increase to 35%.

The changes for this year are a result of FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid charged the FCPS Secondary Grading Committee to consider making changes to a variety of topics.The goal of the meeting on July 18th was to “develop a clear charge for the Secondary Grading Advisory Committee to update its recommendations for secondary grading practices to align with the revised Policy 2418 and the 2023-2030 Strategic Plan” school board members Ricardy J. Anderson and Rachna S. Heizer said in a joint statement.

“The new grading policy can be helpful at times but still doesn’t always benefit us” Miranda Dine (’25) said when asked her opinion of the new policy. With all these changes, some students are finding it hard to adjust to the updates, while some praise the initiative Madison takes in finding the best fit for its students.