New Grading Policy Leaves Students Frustrated

The new grading policy is among the many new policies being implemented in the 2026-2027 school year. The new grading policy contains rules regarding what teachers can assign and how the students’ grades will be weighted. The original grading policy was changed in 2020 with the superintendent at the time, and the Office of Instruction and Strategic Planning worked on the grading policy and grading handbook. The handbook at the time did not outline the policies very clearly, and schools were implementing them themselves.

According to Mr. Craig Dommer, the Executive Director of Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction, “the previous policy was a little bit vague around how late work was accepted and how it was graded.”

The old grading policy allowed for the lowest grade to be a 50%, and it allowed as many retakes as possible, no matter what a student’s original grade was. In addition, there was no policy that alerted parents if their student was in danger of a low grade.

The new grading policy only allows students to retake a summative assignment, paper, or project one time to earn up to a 90%. Work submitted more than two weeks late can earn up to an 85%, and unsubmitted assignments (after this deadline) are recorded with a grade of 40%. A 40% is also the lowest grade a student can earn on a summative assignment, paper, or project. There has to be a minimum of 5 graded assignments for each course, and no assignment can count for more than 20% of the semester grade.

Another new addition to the policy is the Family Alerting policy. The policy is that six weeks into a grading quarter, teachers and schools should alert families if their student is in danger of getting any grade below a B. Mr. Dommer said that, as well as the alerting policy, “part of the [lowest score being a] 40% was also about family communication. Part of it was about rewarding students who attempt assignments, but part of it was also making it easier for students and families to see in the grade book what hasn’t been turned in at all.”

One of the biggest changes this year, according to students, is the retake policy. 10th grader Cecilia Rapp-Work says, “I dislike the new retake policy; if you retake something and get a 100%, you deserve the 100%.” Although some students disagree, Mr. Dommer says, “If they’re doing all their work, they’re likely still to get an A.” Last year, “the situation that we were just trying to avoid is that a student gets a 91% and is not allowed to retake, but a student gets an 89%, and then is able to get a 100.” This situation is not fair because there were times when “students were asking to get an 89% so that they could retake versus the 91%.”

WAHS principal Dr. Demitry says that the new retake policy allows students to enjoy life as much as possible, gives them chances to make mistakes, and provides them with experiences for adulthood.

The new grading policy is only intended to help students so that they understand what they know in each of their courses. When the school board was deciding on the new policy, they looked at the 2025 SOL test and compared it to the letter grades the students got on their report cards. Mr. Dommer said that “more students were getting As and not doing as well on the test.”

The new grading policy comes with pros and cons, and the school board will be looking at the test scores and grades at the end of the year to compare them to last year and make final decisions. The decisions will be made with the input of a committee, which is going to be formed with some Albemarle County Public Schools’ parents, ensuring the board makes the grading policy fair and reasonable.

New Grading Policy Leaves Students Frustrated

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