By Kendall Harshberger
<[email protected]>

CHS currently uses a six-week grading period system, but this will change next year, when the implementation of a nine-week grading period will start.

Superintendent Jeff Swensson originally considered this switch and according to English teacher Dale Yessak, who serves on the committee of administrators and teachers investigating the strengths and weaknesses of a nine-week grading period, a recommendation in favor of the nine-week system was sent to Swensson for his consideration during the week of Feb. 8 after teachers took a survey.

“Input was sought from random CHS students as well, though no formal survey was conducted with the student body,” Yessak said via e-mail. Yessak said parent input originally motivated the decision to have a committee investigate the situation. There is no current plan to collect parent input at this time.

Williams said one advantage to the nine-week system is that it gives more time for teachers to get grades and information in.

“Teachers have a difficult time coming up with all of the grades at the end of our six-week grading period, especially in the classes that are more project based,” he said. “The nine-week grading period could help with that.”

Math teacher Kathie Freed said she likes the idea of a nine-week system.

“I think it’s an awesome thing for high school students. In my way of thinking, as a parent and as a teacher, a nine-week grading period gives a student longer to recover,” Freed said, adding that the nine-week system would also put more emphasis on semester exams.

Freshman Lillian Goodman said she also thinks a nine-week grading period would be a good change. As an incoming freshman, she said she had to adapt to the current grading system.

“It wasn’t really that hard to adjust,” she said. “It may have been a little weird at first because of those extra three weeks being taken away.”

However, Williams said there are also disadvantages, like longer wait for report cards and, essentially, fewer progress reports for students.

“Now that we have myCCS I hope this wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Our teachers are generally pretty good about updating it. If a student gets their report card and just then finds out that something went wrong in a particular class, there was something wrong with the communication between teacher, student and parent,” he said.

Overall, Goodman said the program is a good one. She said, “As long as we kept the Blue and Gold days here, we would have a lot more time to do our homework. If something happens to slip, like you do badly on a test, you have more time to get your grade back on track.”