The Mid-Semester Switch
Media provided by the Grace Church High School website.
When the Grace Church School administration announced that there would be a replacement of the quarter system with a “mid-semester” grading system, people were confused, and not only because of the long email we received from Mr. James. Despite numerous meetings and emails at the beginning of the year announcing it, for many students, the shift raised a simple question: What is the actual difference?
Previously, Quarter One was the first checkpoint of the academic year, followed by the parent-teacher conferences. It was a clear moment when students received a snapshot of their progress. With the shift to mid-semester grades, many expected a drastic change, but that isn’t necessarily the case.
For some students, the new system has made almost no difference. “The change is pointless,” says Francesca J. ‘27, who states that teachers still provide feedback at the same pace and students experience the same type of workload. From her perspective, mid-semester simply replaced quarter one without changing the grading system. When asked about the new system, Ethan F. ‘26 said, “I could not care less.” For him, the semester system feels identical; “It is the exact same.” But for teachers and learning specialists, this change means much more.
Kallan Wood, who teaches year-long ninth-grade World Literature, as well as semester-long literature courses, notes that “there is a change in pacing,” stating that it’s slower for year-long courses. For the semester-long courses, the pacing does not change because senior grades are submitted on a strict deadline. As for the underclassmen, the change in schedule is more forgiving and allows teachers to change the flow of the class whenever they would like.
Spencer Irwin, the school’s lead learning specialist and a former math teacher, explained that the system provides students with a clearer understanding of their progress over time. He explained that, unlike the quarter system, semesters do not reset the gradebook and your grade isn’t split as 50% quarter 1 and 50% quarter 2, it’s an ongoing percentage that isn’t locked until the end of the semester. This means that old missing assignments are still visible. Mr. Irwin sees this as a chance for real improvement: “students still have access to that material.” They can revisit earlier work and improve their grades well after the quarter system ends. He also noted that the quarter system made Grace feel uniquely weird and that most other institutions, including colleges, use a semester model.
Tom James, the assistant head of the high school, explains that the switch from the quarter system was meant to change how grading had been previously compressed into strict deadlines. Under the old system, teachers had consolidated all of our learning from the previous quarter into a single number as the carryover grade to the next quarter, and then the gradebook was closed. The structure required teachers to organize their courses so that the major work was completed at the end of the quarter, whereas the new system allows rolling deadlines and is not artificially constrained by the gradebook. As Mr. James notes, “learning is meant to be in a longer, smoother progression.”
Frank Newman emphasizes that the new system is much more lenient and less stressful for both students and teachers. He explains that reassessment is now much easier to implement, since teachers are not constricted by a closed gradebook; “it was harder to allow students to reassess something that happened earlier.” The mid-semester switch also supports skills-based grading, in which students are assessed throughout the semester. In Mr. Newman’s Intensive Algebra Two course, if you perform exceptionally well on a particular skill, he doesn’t use the student’s average; instead, he records their best grade in the gradebook.
In conclusion, although the new Mid-Semester system may go unnoticed by students, it does a great deal to relieve us of unnecessary end-of-quarter stress and allows teachers to be more lenient with their class schedules.
Antonia A. ‘27, one of the writers, is a staff member of The Grace Gazette.
Caleb L. ‘26, the other writer, is the Senior Deputy Editor of The Grace Gazette.