At the beginning of this school year, the Coral Springs Charter administrative team decided to rework the grading system from the previous tiered mastery system to now one singular mastery and practice grade. However, the Science department fought back and now, their system is changing.

Prior to this school year, starting in 2020, Charter followed a grading system that had mastery 1-4 and practice 1-4. This was an attempt to follow the old point-system that Charter followed prior to covid which assigned certain points to each assignment. This allowed for a daily quiz have a different weight than a unit test. When this school year started though, the school switched over to one singular mastery and practice section, which proved very difficult for the science classes.

Near the end of the first quarter, the science department realized that one category for mastery grades and one category for practice grade was not going to properly satisfy the expectation that is held for their department. While in a Professional Learning Community meeting (PLC), they discussed how they could implement a change. As they learned through the first quarter, one category would be too little but four categories would be too much, so they proposed a change. Two mastery and two practice grade categories, one for high mastery and practice and another for low mastery and practice. This would allow for a large multi-step project to not hold the same impact as a pop quiz.

“In the high school science department, we’re all like a group,” said High School Science Teacher Suzette Fasciani. “Everybody was feeling very frustrated with the grades and felt like they didn’t truly reflect what was going on in that class.” She mentions that with only one mastery and practice section, grades were being overinflated and grades that are usually B’s are being bumped into the A category.

Students are also happy with the change though and wish that other departments would try to make a change in their systems as well.

“I think they should implement this into every class,” said Junior Juliette Beauregard. She’s not the only one who feels this way though. Junior Thomas Givens agrees and mentions that it would help reflect the effort that a student is putting into classes.