Semester Grading for Upper School Courses

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Starting this school year, Crossroads is making a change to how semester grades in upper school courses are calculated. Previously, quarter grades were calculated separately and then averaged together (along with a final exam, if relevant).

For example, a student’s first semester grade may have been:

  • 40% 1st Quarter Grade
  • 40% 2nd Quarter Grade
  • 20% Final Exam

Semester grades will now be the average of all the grades from the full semester rather than two averaged quarters. 

We made this decision for two reasons:

1. Averaging quarters sometimes made assignments more or less important than teachers wanted them to be. For example, if a class had one test in 1st Quarter and two tests in 2nd Quarter, averaging the quarters together made the first test worth the same as the second two combined, regardless of how many points the tests were worth.

2. Students in upper school classes will better understand their progress over the course of the semester this way rather than having that their grade “started over” at the end of a quarter. 

As a result, we will also be changing the way we refer to grade updates. Instead of referring to quarter grades or mid-quarter grades in the upper school, we will instead be referring to progress reports. These will still be done at the same frequency as previous grade updates, and we hope the language will clarify that the grade updates are to be seen as progress-to-date in a semester.

If you have any additional questions or concerns, please email our School Director, Kim Townsend