The grading system at Smoky Hill is unique in that it gives students an automatic 40% on any missing assignment instead of being put in, but why do they do this? Usually, schools across districts in Colorado will give students a 0% on any missing work, but there is a big problem with this. 0-59% is considered an F in PowerSchool at Smoky. If one assignment is counted as a “0”, the overall grade is severely lowered by one assignment making it much harder for students to get good grades, or even, passing grades. To compensate for this, the 40% NHI, “Not Handed In”, was implemented so students would have a fair chance to pass classes and be satisfied with their grades.

Another reason for this grading system is that grades are supposed to accurately represent student’s work over the semester and keeping students’ grades high could be a motivation for students to try harder in school. In the past 10 years, the graduation rate in Colorado has gone up by a pretty large percentage. According to ChalkBeat, just in 2012, the graduation rate was 76.1%, and in 2023, the percentage was 83.1%. This could be the result of the new grading policy which was not as common in Colorado high schools in 2012. 

Smoky Hill came to the decision after reading many studies to do with the subject, they found that students would be less motivated if they received 0 %s instead of 40 %s.

 smoky also decided to give students 50%’s on assignments that the students showed no evidence of learning and 55%’s on assignments the students showed minimal effort, these decisions were also made in order to boost student’s motivation in school

In conclusion, this new policy that is becoming more and more common makes lots of sense for high schools and could be helpful for students the more normalized it is in high school.