Starting more than a year ago to revamp the grading policy for middle and high school students in Waukegan Community Unit School District 60, committees charged with finalizing the policy are ready to implement some parts, but the collaboration of teachers is necessary to complete the process.
Differences exist in the way teachers assess student performance and give grades. Jennifer Rice de la Sanchez, the district’s director of teaching and learning, said consistency is a must so one student does not receive an A and another a B when they display the same mastery of a subject.
“There must be consistency for grades given to all students,” de la Sanchez said. “Students who learn the same amount, and show they have learned the same amount, should receive the same grade even if they have a different teacher for the same subject.”
De la Sanchez and a team of six educators updated the District 60 Board of Education on the status of the changes both made — and eventually coming — during a meeting on July 22 at the Education Service Center in Waukegan.
Effective with the start of classes on Aug. 11, high school students will no longer be ranked by grade-point average from top to bottom, potentially making Brandon Aguilar the last valedictorian of Waukegan High School when he graduated in May.
Though class ranks will be a thing of the past, de la Sanchez said all students with a grade-point average of 3.85 or higher on a 4-point scale will graduate summa cum laude, while those between 3.7 and 3.84 will be magna cum laude, and those from 3.5 to 3.69 will be cum laude.
“It’s getting pretty common around the area and in other parts of the country,” de la Sanches said, referring to the elimination of class rank. “More students can be recognized who have an outstanding grade-point average.”
Another change for the 2025-26 school year for high school students makes it clear “formative grades” like quizzes, short papers and classwork will account for 30% of a semester grade while the other 70% will be “summative” grades consisting of more comprehensive tests and longer papers, according to the superintendent’s report presented at the meeting.
There will also be more consistency in the coming term for students who must make up work or take a test they missed. Middle schools will form a consistent policy. For Waukegan High School, the policy will be department by department, according to the report.
With a goal of grading consistency, teachers will collaborate over the next two academic years to create a grading system that “means the same thing for all students regardless of what school or classroom they attend” in the middle schools and high school, according to the report.
During their discussions over the next two years, teachers will devise and present a plan that separates academic performance and behavior. Learning will reflect student learning, “relative to state and nationally recognized standards,” according to the report. It will be clearly communicated to students, parents and educators.
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“Teachers are very passionate about this,” de la Sanchez said. “They need time to work through it. Sometimes you have to go through the mud a little bit instead of going too quickly because you didn’t have the rich dialogue.”
For more than a year, four committees of teachers, staff and administrators have worked together to give teachers guidelines to help guide their deliberation. Behavior grades should receive “zero” weight, according to the report.
Another committee recommendation for the middle and high school teachers is to develop common values among work done so there is consistency from one class to another of the same subject, according to the report.
Though no vote was taken, board members generally agreed that giving teachers sufficient time to agree on grading philosophies would create the best outcomes. Board member Anita Hanna said it was important to ensure teachers a voice in the outcome.
A lengthy period of time is also necessary because the teachers have a limited amount of time to spend talking about the subject with the rest of their responsibilities, de la Sanchez said.
Board member Christine Lensing said getting the teachers of one mind through collaboration is an important part of the process of creating an equitable grading policy.
“I appreciate the honest conversations in safe spaces because we need people to have their voices heard so we can identify this is where everybody agrees and this is where we need to fine-tune and get everybody on the same page because that buy-in is so important,” Lensing said.
Board member Carolina Fabian said some teachers wait until the end of a semester to enter any grade in their grade book, while other educators place evaluations there frequently. She believes consistency is necessary in this area as well.
“It may seem like my child is failing, but the teacher did not enter any grades,” Fabian said. “We want to have a standard for our teachers of how often they’re grading so when those midpoint check-ins come in, it’s communicated clearly to the parent of where my child is at.”