REVISED January 20, 2026
My grading system is designed to let you know how you are doing, to give you chances to improve your grade by demonstrating your mastery of the course material, and to try to incentivize you to make sure you really master the material.
You will be graded on a number of standards, each of which represents one aspect of what we are learning this year. Ultimately what matters is whether you master each of the standards.
Each standard is represented by a category in IC (Infinite Campus) and your grade for each standard will be the percentage of the points available that you have earned in its category.
Each standard grade will be determined by two kinds of points:
The bulk of your points (approximately 85%) for each standard will come from points earned on required graded assignments and tests.
Each graded assignment or test will be worth some number of points toward one or more standards and will be recorded as an assignment in IC worth that number of points in the appropriate category. You will earn points for each assignment based on your performance on the assignment.
If you go above and beyond on an assignment, particularly on a more free-form project, and really demonstrate a higher-than-average level of mastery, it is possible to earn more points than the assignment’s point value in IC.
In general, later assignments on each standard will be worth more points than earlier ones, so even if it takes you a while to master some material, your later performances will have more effect the assignment points you earn than the earlier ones.
The rest of the points (approximately 15%) for each standard will come from mastery points. There will be various ways you can earn mastery points which I will explain throughout the year. They will all involve demonstrating your mastery of the standard such as by redoing old assignments in “speedruns” or doing new optional assignments or projects.
The mastery points for each standard will be represented in IC by a single assignment in the standard category. That assignment’s point value will change over the year to keep it at about 15% of the total points for the standard.
As with all assignments you can actually earn more points in the mastery points assignment than its point value in IC. So it is—at least theoretically—always possible to raise your grade by earning extra mastery points to make up for missed assignment points.
That said, I don’t recommend planning on raising your grade entirely by trying to earn mastery points at the end of the semester. There is a finite amount of time available to you and the most time efficient way to earn points is to do well on the actual assignments.
Your semester grade will be determined by the average of your standard grades. Usually the standards will be equally weighted but sometimes I may adjust their weightings, particularly in the spring semester. I map percentage scores to letter grades using the following scale:
| ≥ 85% | ≥ 70% | ≥ 45% | ≥ 20% | <20% |
| A | B | C | D | F |
This scale works in conjunction with the mastery points needed per standard to ensure that if you get 100% on every test you will be at least within striking distance of an A but will likely need to earn at least a few mastery points to be sure of an A.