This approach to learning, teaching, assessment, and grading is based on students demonstrating understanding or evidence of learning towards mastery of academic disciplinary standards. This approach allows for the focus to be on specific targeted skills, meaningful communication between students and teachers, and places emphasis on growth skills, and meaningful feedback.

JCPS’s middle school grading policy only has one category: mastery. The grades you see in the mastery category reflect specific individual standards or big projects that demonstrate mastery of standards . This means that smaller, individual assignments will not appear in the mastery category. Mastery scores will reflect the student’s overall understanding of standards. This means that the scores you see will fluctuate as the teacher collects more evidence of the student’s understanding. Per the Noe Grading Policy, grades will be up to date the 4th and 9th week of each grading period. In Infinite Campus, you will see 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. Infinite Campus translates these into letter grades.

Students have the opportunity to re-do or submit new evidence to update mastery grades. Students are responsible for communicating with the teacher about the re-do. Teachers will communicate the expectations to the students of  what work must be completed before the opportunity to do a re-take or update a grade. Students will have the opportunity to re-do or submit new evidence until the end of a grading period. 

All types of assignments can be used as evidence to score a student on a standard. Teachers may keep this evidence in various places: their own spreadsheets, Google Classroom, student self-trackers, or in the Engagement category in Infinite Campus. Anything listed in the Engagement category is purely for feedback purposes; these “grades” are not calculated as part of a student’s class grade. The goal of all of these assignments is to provide feedback to the student and evidence for the teacher regarding how they are progressing towards meeting a particular standard. 

Students are expected to complete work assigned by their teachers. If a student is missing work, the teacher cannot accurately assess progress towards standards mastery or provide feedback to the student. Teachers will mark assignments as missing in Infinite Campus, which will look like: *M. One aspect of being a responsible Noe student is turning in work on time. For this reason, students who turn in work late will see that reflected in their conduct grade. See below for more information on conduct grades. 

Students will receive a conduct grade based on their meeting of the Noe PBIS expectations of being a safe, respectful, and responsible student. All teams at Noe use an infraction system to manage the small, everyday behaviors that do not meet these expectations. The team infraction and behavior system aligns with the school Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS) Plan. Conduct grades are how teachers communicate mastery of behavioral expectations. Conduct grades will be updated in Infinite Campus in the 4th week so that you are aware of your student’s conduct grade progress. Teachers will reach out if a student is in danger of receiving a conduct grade lower than satisfactory.