As many students know, high school is difficult. Students work very hard for good grades and to keep their GPAs high. To get an 89 percent on an assignment that students worked very hard on can be in some ways insulting.

An 89 percent is only one point away from earning an A; however, with a lot of teachers it goes directly in the grade book as an 89 percent. I believe that if it is clear that the student was successful in earning all of the correct learning targets, than the grade should be rounded up to an A.

“It can get really hard if you get an 89, because if you want to get an A you’re gonna have to get more extra credit to get that one percent,” freshman Lily Robertson said.

Straight As are a top priority to a lot of students, including myself. If students do not join any extracurriculars, grades are especially important.

“Straight As are a part of getting into a great college, and I think that it’s great for your GPA,” Robertson said.

In certain classes, such as Literary and Language Arts students do not get percentages, and they get a score out of four points instead.

“I think our policies now, at least in the LLA [Literary and Language Arts] department, have students do a lot more revision,” Literary and Language Arts teacher Lyndsey Hicks said. “That kind of makes the grading a little bit different, because it’s not so much about points or percentages in that point. It’s about mastery.”

Many students at our school participate in extracurriculars, such as sports or other electives. It can be more difficult to focus on schoolwork, especially if students get home at late times.

However, there are always many opportunities in certain classes to redo an assignment, which makes students more responsible for the grades they are achieving for.

“What I see a lot with my students is the ability to reassess or redo an assignment is really helping with the effort component, because students are maybe not succeeding on the standard the first time,” Hicks said.

Although there are retakes for some assignments, not every teacher allows students to have this perk. This puts extra stress on students to do everything perfectly the first time.

An 89 percent should get rounded to an A because it would take pressure off of many students and would help others gain the GPA that they deserve.