Gunn High School is piloting a new grading policy this school year — evidence-based teaching and learning — which is designed to favor student growth and understanding over traditional test scores, Gunn High Assistant Principal Kathryn Catalano said.
Although not yet mandated by Palo Alto Unified School District, the district has encouraged teachers to gradually adopt the new grading policy. At Gunn High, evidence-based grading is being piloted in all AP Chemistry, Chemistry, Algebra 1, AP Computer Science Principles, AP English Literature, AP Physics 1, AP Physics C, Conceptual Physics and Physics classes.
Evidence-based teaching and learning has been used at Gunn in the past and many staff started offering professional evidence-based teaching and learning development for volunteer teachers in 2023.
Compared to Gunn High’s previous grading system, where students were typically assessed on roughly 25 standards per semester with numerical calculations, evidence-based learning assesses students on three to five core concepts at the end of the course.
Similar to past standards-based grading systems at Gunn, evidence-based teaching and learning uses a one-to-four grading scale, with one signifying developing proficiency, two as approaching proficiency, three as meeting proficiency, and four as exceeding proficiency. Typically, Gunn High’s grading system relies on numerical grade percentages with an A-F range.
According to English Department Instructional Lead and English teacher Kate Weymouth, the switch from percentage-based grading to whole numbers encourages self-accountability and targeted conversations about progress, rather than having students focus solely on chasing a letter grade.
The evidence-based grading system also emphasizes “recency” and “consistency” when determining a final grade, since recent assessments hold more weight in a student’s overall grade. Weymouth said that the new grading system helps to streamline pedagogical differences multiple teachers may have when teaching the same subject.
However, some students prefer traditional letter grades over the new, numerical grading scale. Junior Tomer Polak said that the evidence-based teaching and learningnew grading system creates transparency issues, especially when checking grades online in the Schoology grade book.
“It’s just more confusing to know your grade since there’s not a number I can point to and associate with my grade,” Polak said. “In my English class right now, I have a three out of four, and that’s technically proficient but it shows as a 75% on Schoology which is really annoying.”
Instead of uploading grades through Schoology, teachers create grade sheets via Google Sheets for students to view their grades in certain courses such as Physics. Grade sheets typically include marks for all the students’ summative assessments and a minimum and maximum letter grade a student could earn based on their performance.
Gunn High senior Yuna Suh said she appreciates the new grading sheet system since it allows students to have one-on-one conferences with their teachers to discuss their grades, building the student-teacher relationship.
Still, Suh said that evidence-based teaching and learning grading policies have some ambiguous language and student experiences can vary with the new grading system based on the teacher and course.
Despite some negative feedback from students, other teachers at Gunn High, like Science Department Instructional Lead and Physics teacher Laurie Pennington, feel thrilled to have the new grading system.
Pennington uses evidence-based grading in all her classes and noticed that it pushes students to actually grasp concepts taught rather than memorize lectures. Pennington’s support for evidence-based teaching and learning stems from her experience teaching non-accelerated and non-AP physics at Gunn, which she believes offers students more opportunities to achieve their desired grades, she said.
“I don’t want to teach any AP classes or anything. I need to be with students who need me,” Pennington said. “And now this grading system levels the playing field where every student can earn the grade they want.”
