The beginning of high school can be both transformational and overwhelming for students as they leave behind the familiar halls of middle school and step into a new environment.
High school comes with many differences from middle school, one of which is the switch from standard-based grading to letter-based grading. The standards-based format consists of three grades: Meeting, Progressing, or Beginning. Lexington High School, on the other hand, uses a traditional method where grades range from an A+ to an F.
Although standard-based grading allows more room for error, traditional letter grades give students a better sense of their progress.
“I think the grades that we have now are much better because a Meeting could be anything between a B to an A+. There’s more variety and you can see how well you’re doing with more depth,” Adhiti Hariam, a freshman at LHS, said.
Hariam believes that the letter-based grading allows students to have a better understanding of their position within the class. With a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, they can improve accordingly.
Another freshman, Sireeta Banerjee, echoes the same sentiment, and believes that letter-based grading is an improvement from standard-based grading.
“I feel like the change is nice because you get a better view of how you’re doing. Back then, we would always get this false representation that, ‘Hey, you’re doing amazing, you’re getting Meetings, that’s great,’ but Meeting is a very broad term,” Banerjee said. “It’s really hard to know where in that range you’re standing.”
In addition, letter-based grading motivates students to excel and go above and beyond standard expectations.
“I think here at the high school, having letter grades is really good at helping you achieve, and those who are actual go-getters are really going to go and try their hardest to get that good grade,” Banerjee, a freshman, said. However, some students believe that standard-based grading is preferable.
“You have more space to make errors. Even if you make mistakes on a test, you’d still get what is considered a good grade,” Khadijah Mohmand, a freshman at LHS, said.
Currently, the middle and high schools are trying to soften the transition by giving middle schoolers a standard-based grade and a letter grade in the last few months of eighth grade.
“I found it really helpful when they started giving us letter grades, and they gave us a lot of feedback for high school,” Banerjee said.
While Banerjee describes this initiative by middle schools as being beneficial for incoming freshmen, she also provided advice to make the transition even more smooth beyond grades.
“[Freshmen]should find the things they enjoy, their coping mechanisms, things that help them. In middle school, we tended to freak out over grades, but really [we] should have enjoyed ourselves and [found] what helps us destress,” Banerjee said.
