Raleigh middle school’s nontraditional grading — which parents hated — is going away

A Raleigh middle school will return to traditional report card grades after ongoing parental complaints that they couldn’t understand how their children were doing under a modified grading system.

Since 2018, teachers at Carroll Middle School in Raleigh have graded students on a scale of one to four on how well they were showing mastery on different “competencies.” But starting with the 2023-24 school year, Carroll will return to using a 10-point grading scale where an A is a 90 to 100 and a B is 80 to 89.

School and district leaders said Monday the change is supported by parents and teachers at Carroll and will align it with other middle schools in Wake.

Parents have been complaining about the new system since 2018.

“It doesn’t matter how many learning sessions you have to try to explain how they’re receiving grades,” said Superintendent Catty Moore. “They are defaulting to what they know and what every other neighbor down the street and on the other side of the block or whatever has on their report card.”

Moore told the school board’s student achievement committee that further review is needed before seeing whether other Wake middle schools use Carroll’s model.

Departure from traditional grading

Wake moved away from A-F grading in elementary schools in 2004, switching to a system where report cards are based on grades of Level 1 to Level 4.

When Wake students move to middle school, they get report cards with a numerical grade for each subject based on a 10-point scale.

Wake’s high schools are required to use the A-F grades to comply with state law on what’s recorded on high school transcripts.

In 2018, the school board gave permission for Carroll Middle, a magnet school near North Hills in Raleigh, to try the new grading initiative. At the time, school leaders said the A-F grading system doesn’t provide enough information about how students are doing and also can discourage students who have low marks.

Last summer, district administrators recommended continuing the program at Carroll for at least one more year.

Under the “competency-based grading” system, course standards are arranged into competencies. Using the scores on individual standards, teachers calculate an overall score for the competency.

The grades are given, similar to elementary school, in a 1 to 4 scale ranging from below mastery to exceeding mastery.

Ongoing parental frustration

From day one, Carroll has struggled to win over parents to the new system.

“Family survey data indicates frustration and confusion with current reporting system, despite ongoing parent support sessions, 1:1 onboarding with families, and parent conferences,” according to Wake’s presentation.

Tina Zarzecki, Carroll’s principal, said they got responses such as “thank goodness” when they told families they’d be changing the grading system to something more familiar.

In addition, the school has had higher than average staff turnover that’s made it harder to train teachers in using the new system.

According to Carroll, 88.6% of current staff and 85% of parents support changing the grading system again.

‘Bittersweet’ end

For the 2023-24 school year, Carroll students will still be graded on how well they’re mastering standards. But the assessments and assignments will now be converted to a percentage score similar to what’s given in other middle schools.

Carroll’s final report cards will be issued in PowerSchool using a 10-point grading scale.

“This streamlines it all and aligns with the district,” Zarzecki told the school board.

Wake says the change will provide consistency for students who enter and leave Carroll from other middle schools.

In addition, Wake says the change will help Carroll students transition to the grading system used in high school.

School board chair Lindsay Mahaffey said it’s a “little bittersweet” that Carroll is dropping the use of competency-based grading.

“I know when this first came to the board it was bold, it was visionary,” Mahaffey said. “My teacher heart kind of exploded with ‘yes this is wonderful.’”