GRADING POLICY
We believe all students can learn at high levels. While learning is the ultimate goal, grades are established in convention to the educational system to determine academic growth and learning. PMA uses a traditional grading scale with category weights entered on PowerSchool, our school’s grade manager.


The grading policy varies by department but is unified throughout the curriculum by category weights system. Teachers use various categories of assignments: classwork, homework, writing assignments, participation, projects, performance based tasks, quizzes, tests, midterms and final exams.  Within each of these categories there may be two types of assignments: formative and summative. Formative assessments are for practice to help check a student’s comprehension and understanding of the content material. Summative assessments are any graded assignments with rubrics or criteria such as projects, writing assignments, quizzes, tests, midterms and final exams.


Each academic course has assigned various weights (percentages) to each category of assignments. Final exams and Midterms are 20% of the final grade while other categories may vary. To determine the category weights for each course, please see the student’s syllabus and Google Classroom at the beginning of the year. If there are questions or concerns, please contact the student’s teacher.


Failing to complete assignments, especially major assessments like projects, labs, essays, or research papers is not acceptable. Students will be expected to complete these assignments and parents will be notified by the teacher if a student has failed to do so. Because late work is a sign of poor work habits and lack of responsibility, a late penalty of up to 50% will be applied to any late work. A teacher may never accept late work after final grades have been submitted.


When parents are concerned about the circumstances in which a particular grade was given, they should first talk directly to the teacher involved.  If talking to the teacher does not clarify the situation to the parent’s satisfaction, then the grade level counselor should be contacted.  If this does not clarify the situation to the parent’s satisfaction, the Dean of Student Success should be consulted (the Principal has the final say in such matters).  Any challenging of grades must be made within two weeks of the receipt of the grades.


C. UNWEIGHTED AND WEIGHTED  GRADE POINT AVERAGE
1. The Unweighted Grade Point Average is based on a traditional grading scale and is applied to all college-prep or required classes which do not have an Honors or AP distinction.  


The traditional scale we use is as follows: 
A 4.0
B 3.0
C 2.0
D 1.0
F 0


2. All honors or Advanced Placement (AP) courses are weighted so that they are given higher credit than the regular or non-honors course. The weighted GPA is used to determine class ranking and honor roll only. The incentive for choosing the more challenging course of studies is thus rewarded. Where colleges/ universities do use weighting it is based on their own particular subject area requirements.  Grades below “C” are NEVER weighted. 


The weighted grade is given credit according to the following scale: 
A 5.0
B 4.0
C 3.0
D 1.0
F 0


3. Other GPA Calculations
Essentially, our graduates have multiple GPAs:
PMA GPA, which reflects the cumulative of all courses taken; 
UC/CSU GPA, which reflects only the courses that meet UC/CSU a-g subject requirements; 
NCAA GPA for athletic eligibility, which reflects only the courses that meet the NCAA course requirements.
In addition, private colleges/universities each view GPA and accept courses based on their individuals requirements. 

GRADING SCALE 
All teachers in computing assignments, tests and report cards will use the following scale:

A 100  - 90

B 89  - 80

C 79  - 70

D 69  - 60

F 59  - Below