Poly Prep teaches students how to strive for greatness, excellence, and to exceed expectations. Teachers and coaches alike have the objective in mind to push students to the next level, intellectually and physically. In the classrooms, there is one thing — a concise combination of a letter and a symbol — that epitomizes the essence of what that excellence is, something that seems attainable. However, as soon as you feel you reach the elusive standard, the goalposts get further moved back. This state of true mastery is represented within the coveted A-plus. Rumors like “my teacher says that only one student per year can get an A-plus” and “humanities classes aren’t permitted to give A-pluses” have been circulating the halls, provoking confusion among Poly students. The student body is owed an explanation of the approaches teachers in all departments take when granting this grade of superb achievement. What’s behind the A-plus?
When COVID-19 hit Poly, administrators were tasked with reevaluating the school’s grading policy. A “grading floor” was instated during virtual school, meaning that whatever grade students retained before entering the virtual classroom, they could not dip below that grade. Assistant Head of School, Academics Michal Hershkovitz says that was the moment “that started us down a path of revisiting our grading policies. We started looking at some of these new policies and looking at our existing grading policies through the lens of equity.” The Administration evaluated their grading policies, ultimately decided to offer extra credit no longer, and made sure that all grading is accurate, bias resistant, and motivational to allow students to grow and learn. Hershkovitz, along with the chairs of each academic department, curated a grading template. Each department filled out that template with its own information, including questions such as “What types of assessments does your department give?” and “What are your grading rubrics?” “[This template] explains to students in terms of what their expectations are, what the teacher’s expectations are, what will constitute a grade, a high grade, and what will constitute a grade that suggests you, as the student, need to do more work,” Hershkovitz said.
Some departments require a precise answer to obtain that perfect score, and others obligate “publishable quality,” Herskovitz said, for an A-plus. What do the thought processes look for granting the craved A-plus, department by department?
HISTORY DEPARTMENT:
Although some might presume that earning an A-plus in their history class is plainly impossible, the truth is that it can happen. Dr. Virginia Dillon, chair of the history department, helped to peel back the covers and reveal the thought processes behind History A-pluses. “We don’t have a strict policy in terms of A-pluses. It’s possible you can get an A-plus in history on a paper, I suppose, even for the semester. It’s not that it’s impossible, but it is really rare. The A itself is exceeding expectations, going above and beyond what was asked of you. An A-plus is sort of like even above ‘above and beyond.’ It’s got to be publishable quality,” Dillon said. There was a department chair meeting earlier this school year that made it clear to teachers that they are permitted to grant an A-plus but for the purpose of rewarding exceptionally strong students. It just so happens that this level of incredibility is quite rare.
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT:
Similarly to the history department, English courses being part of the humanities department, tend to be centered around confusion on A-plus policies. Since grading an analytical paper or poetry analysis can be subjective, the lines around giving A-pluses in English can be blurred to a student’s eye. Chair of the English Department Peter Nowakoski hoped to clear some of this confusion. “We often have conversations about what constitutes an A-plus, and I think the department agrees, broadly speaking, that an A plus should be a rarity at best. We don’t really use numbers to grade that much. I mean, yes, we do, we put things into rubrics, rubrics out of numbers, but those are always just sort of subjective fields. You can accurately tell the difference between a 96, a 97, or a 98 less clearly in humanities courses where you’re grading things that aren’t easily captured by quantitative methods. [Receiving an A-plus] should involve something beyond not just simply completing the assessments and doing really well on them, but some other kind of bigger result.” Nowakowki describes one of his hard-working A-plus recipients as “almost graduate student level.”
LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT:
The language department takes a more mathematical approach to granting A-pluses, in contrast to humanities classes. Chair of the Language Department Elisabeth Mansfield, said, “An A-plus is a mathematical equation, 96.5 to 100. So, if that’s your average, you get the grade that you deserve. To me, it’s just a simple calculation, I don’t think that there’s ever been a policy against giving an A-plus [for the language department]. The Head of Upper School, Ms. Bates, handed us a grading scale that had an A-plus on it as the top grade.”
MATH DEPARTMENT:
The math department’s A-plus policy is forthright. Chair of the Math Department Dr. Maria DiCarlo has an explicit answer to the confusion. “There’s no policy on [giving a-pluses]. It’s all very objective. Like for our tests, if you get the question right, you earn the points. Many years, like 20 years ago, there were some grading policies, but they’re in terms of like number of A’s or something like that. I mean, I’ll say that if your whole class is getting an A-plus [for the semester], then you should maybe question if you’re challenging your students,” DiCarlo said. All in all, the math department calculates A-pluses simply like a mathematical equation.
SCIENCE DEPARTMENT:
Similar to the math and language departments, the science department grading policy takes the numerical approach. Ramesh Laungani, chair of the science department, said, “there is no formal policy in the science department for or against A-pluses. We follow the Poly grading scale, which I believe states that if a student earns a 97 or above on a given graded assessment, whether that’s an in-class exam or a graded project, or if they earn a 97 percent at the class level, they will have earned an A-plus [for that assessment or] for the class.”
Hopefully, a dissection of each individual department’s grading policy in terms of giving A-pluses helps alleviate some of the confusion students feel surrounding the coveted grade. So no, your history teacher hasn’t declared receiving an A-plus impossible, and it is feasible to receive an A-plus in your English class! The standards aren’t unreachable; they are merely subjective to the class and to the teacher. Keep working hard, Poly!
