Olivia Cipperman ‘19
The Saint Ann’s School, an elite institution in Brooklyn, does not give letter or number grades. The school runs from preschool to twelfth grade, much like The Episcopal Academy, and it has relied on detailed teacher reports since its founding in 1965. Assistant Head of High School Tom Hill says that Saint Ann’s “was, from the get-go, designed to be a school without grades. The idea of education was not to put a number or label on a student, but to describe what’s going on in a classroom.” He goes on to explain the school’s orientation toward the arts, as well as the fact that this report-based system serves as a “cornerstone” of the Saint Ann’s experience.
Saint Ann’s grading differs from EA’s in fundamental ways. EA relies on number and letter grades, and it provides a credit boost for students taking Honors or AP level courses. Head of Upper School Michael Letts comments, “In a general sense, you need to have some formal way of assessing students. I think our model by most standards is fairly similar to most schools.”
In contrast, Saint Ann’s takes a highly unique approach. Hill explains, “We have two types of reports that come out in a year. Midway through the semester, there’ll be a checklist report… At the end of each semester, long-form, anecdotal, written reports come out describing what the class has covered, what topics have been learned, and what the students have done with those topics.”
College requirements inform aspects of grading and GPA. Letts says, “I would be disingenuous if I said that colleges aren’t looking at the grades on your transcript, but I would also say that most of the schools actually throw your grades and GPA into their own mix.” He goes on to explain that different colleges may weight aspects of a student’s application in varying ways. Despite the relative importance of grades in the college process, Letts also acknowledges that basing a grading system entirely on college is impractical. Hill puts college application for Saint Ann’s students simply: “We don’t have grades, so we can’t send grades. We do send the transcript, which is a list of classes the students have taken and whether they’ve passed or not.”
Saint Ann’s also sends two reports from both first and second semester. Hill says, “They’ve learned to read these reports in a way that works for them. Colleges are constantly trying to figure out if there’s a grading system embedded in the reports.” He also acknowledges the heightened importance of standardized testing in a system like Saint Ann’s, saying that it “becomes a bigger piece of the puzzle for applying to colleges because that is a number that a university can hang a value on.”
The Saint Ann’s system provides flexibility, but it also brings a new level of subjectivity into the grading process. EA does not plan to change its grading system, but many agree that it has its own pitfalls. Some argue that in more subjective subjects, such as Art and English, it is futile to attempt to assign an objective grade. Hill notes, “the idea of grading a painting seems a lot harder to do.” He argues that objective grades can detract from a student’s learning experience, and some members of the EA community agree. Upper School English teacher Lee Billmyer says, “In an ideal world, in the profession that I love, I would eliminate all grades. Literature and writing is about the love of reading and the cultivation of writers who are still finding their voices.”
Emma Humann ’19 notes that fellow students “take [Honors and AP] classes for the sake of taking them and looking good rather than being interested in what they’re learning.” Letts agrees, “I do think that kids are too grade-focused; I worry that they’re not learning for the sake of learning, they’re learning for the sake of a transcript.”
That being said, many others at EA value the current system as it stands. Grace Smith ’19 says, “I honestly really like our grading system… I think the one we have in place is set up for the students that work hard and are in Honors and AP classes. They get better grades for hard work the way that it’s weighted.” Krissie Essilfie ’21 adds, “It’s a lot easier to tell how well I’m doing when I get a number versus a comment because the wording often insinuates a lot. Having a comment system would be more difficult for me to tell how I’m doing.” In response to feedback he’s gotten from other EA students, Letts says, “I think, for the most part, our kids like the benchmark themselves.”
Objective grading scale or no, most agree that the driven and motivated students at schools like Episcopal and Saint Ann’s care about assessing their own hard work. Upper School Science teacher Cheryl Gray Mitchell concludes, “I think that the students that are really driven and motivated have anxiety centered around their performance, whether that’s centered around having an A, having a 99, or an anecdotal comment of some sort which captures a level of performance.”