The revelation that all Lakeside Middle School students will no longer receive cumulative grades starting in the 2026–2027 school year has elicited mixed reactions across the community: some were completely indifferent, some were openly against it, and some were extremely hopeful.
This choice to remove letter grades was not a spur-of-the-moment decision from administrators: according to Middle School Director Reem Abu Rahmeh, the plans have been in motion since the spring of 2023. “Even though right now it feels like we’re taking something away from the report card, the report card has been redesigned over the past two years to get us to the point where we can say, ‘You have all of this information; you actually do not need the cumulative grade point average,’” Ms. Abu Rahmeh noted. From Tatler’s conversation with Ms. Abu Rahmeh, it is evident that there has been a lot of thought put into this new grading policy, and that the administration is unlikely to turn back. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws in the way it was presented and the problems it would supposedly “fix.”
By pointing out these flaws, I hope to improve the new grading system, smooth this transition for current 7th graders, and create plausible solutions for long-standing problems that this policy is presented as solving (e.g. homework load before breaks and report card periods). This is my analysis of how this new policy has been rolled out so far and what it entails for future and current students.
Communication
Firstly, administrators need to communicate more openly and transparently with students. Although the Strategic Plan has been in motion for a couple of years, no student heard of the upcoming changes until January 2026. “[Administrators] said that they talked to members of the community, like teachers and parents, but our opinion wasn’t really asked, and since it’s mainly affecting us, [administrators] should have asked us … And when we asked questions, they weren’t really answered,” said Damla I. ’31. In both the presentation to seventh grade students and the Middle School Parent/Guardian Webinar with Administrators, administrators only left time for one question. Damla’s request for a follow-up meeting where administrators could answer students’ questions was ignored. Now, more than 60 seventh graders (over 70% of the grade) and 30 8th graders have signed a petition demanding that letter grades return. It’s unreasonable for the administration to make such a huge change out of the blue, do an information dump in a 50-minute presentation, and then pull back and leave students grappling with something they still don’t completely understand.
Risk-taking and Intrinsic Motivation
In the webinar, when presenting the administration’s reasons for removing cumulative letter grades, Ms. Abu Rahmeh said that she wants Lakesiders to be able to take risks in class without fearing that one mistake will give them a bad grade. She later elaborated in an interview with Tatler, saying, “Academic risks really are ways that students will engage with challenges that are presented to them. A lot of times what ends up happening with not taking enough academic risks is that students will choose a path that will be easier to make sure they’re meeting the criteria that is there. Usually, students will opt to do something that is going to be safer [and easier] to make sure they meet the criteria, and that will get them the grade because the grade is at stake and it’s such an important part of their life here.” She went on to emphasize that this isn’t because students aren’t hard-working and driven; it’s because the current grading system is sending the wrong message. I find this concern valid, as I have witnessed several students, including myself, take the “safe” route to guarantee ourselves a good grade.
However, this poses a question: to what extent do letter grades for individual assignments hinder risk-taking? Ms. Abu Rahmeh shared a quote from a teacher during the webinar: “A 6th grader does not know when to stop. A 7th grader stops at an A.” But even though the cumulative grade has been removed from the report card, every individual assignment, project, or test will still have a letter grade, and students expect performance on large projects to be mentioned in teacher comments. Damla asserts that “7th graders do not just stop at an A. I feel like that really discounts how much hard work we put into this school because you don’t just stop at an A and say, ‘oh, okay, I’m at an A. I can stop working.’ No, you work to get as many A’s as possible.” Next year, will the question of “How will choosing this path impact my cumulative grade?” become “How will choosing this path show up in my teacher comments”? Only time will tell.
As for promoting joy for lifelong learning, Ms. Abu Rahmeh says, “We do get to be able to engage with students who are so curious, so driven, and so engaged with their learning that if we could free it up for them a little bit more, think how much more this is going to enhance their journey here.” She speaks in the webinar about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, bringing up several studies on how intrinsic motivation is better for students in the long-term. While I absolutely agree that intrinsic motivation is more beneficial for lifelong learning, I can’t help but wonder how long this intrinsic motivation will last, especially given the abrupt switch to extrinsic motivation in the form of letter grades in the Upper School.
Workload Stress
In the webinar, Ms. Abu Rahmeh admitted that “a lot of 7th graders have been telling [the administration] that it’s not the grade that is stressing them out; it’s the amount of work that is stressing them out.” Yet she also claimed that “it’s all tied. It’s all connected. If we don’t have to think about the cumulative grade we have, we don’t have to do as many assignments because the teachers are trying to do a service.” She clarifies in an email later that teachers are “doing a service” by “[offering] a number of assessments to make a cumulative grade more fair.”
However, from my perspective, the majority of the time, teachers assigning extra homework just to give students more opportunities to raise their grade is not the case. For example, in English class, students are expected to read and annotate certain sections so that they can have a productive discussion in class. In math class, students are given worksheets to attempt so they can gain more experience working with complex concepts. Tests and projects are often repeated year and after year and planned months in advance to assess students’ learning. Testimonies from teachers also clearly show that this is not the case.
“I don’t really foresee [this new grading policy] affecting the way that I assign homework. I don’t really assign specific homework, and I don’t really look to be assigning homework for homework’s sake,” says 8th grade history teacher Krista Morales.
“I think [a decrease in homework load is] probably not gonna happen. I think it’ll be pretty similar … Mostly, the reason I want the students to do homework is because that’s where they’re going to get the majority of their practice. Class time doesn’t allow that much practice time,” says 7th and 8th grade math teacher Eric Gulbis.
Overall, while I think getting rid of the cumulative letter grade can eliminate stress around the long-lasting effects of one assignment in a student’s overall performance, framing this new grading policy as a workload decrease is misleading.
Academic Dishonesty
Later in the webinar, Ms. Abu Rahmeh talks about issues with academic dishonesty, highlighting how academic dishonesty incidents increase for 7th and 8th graders around report card times due to stress around letter grades.
First of all, getting rid of grades does not fix the root cause of academic dishonesty. It simply puts students in an environment where it is not an appealing option. However, in one’s life, stress is inevitable; hence, students need to learn that cheating is not okay early on so it won’t come back to bite them later on. Already, in the Upper School, cases of academic dishonesty being brought to the Judicial Committee (JC) have been on the rise. As a result, it’s especially important that students are taught to navigate this in middle school.
On top of this, presenting that academic dishonesty incidents increase around report card times because of stress around letter grades is a misdiagnosis for one reason: correlation, not causation. What else happens around the time that report cards come out that could cause or contribute to this spike in academic dishonesty incidents? Before the quarter ends and before breaks, teachers rush to wrap up units so they can start afresh. This triggers a tsunami of final projects, unit quizzes, and long reflections, which piles up to hours and hours of homework. Lakesiders, both in the Upper School and Middle School, have complained about teachers never coordinating large assignments despite years of begging for this change. This added workload also contributes to student stress:
“I do usually have more homework [before breaks]. I also have a lot of big projects due at the end of the semester, so I try to finish them over breaks,” says Daniel Y. ’31.
“I think the teachers should probably communicate to each other to not give us five huge projects at once that are all due on the exact same day … The night before we stay up until 12 trying to make them all perfect,” says Kate W. ’31.
Ms. Abu Rahmeh comments on this in the interview, saying, “I do think we can [coordinate] a lot better. I think the problem is we’ve tried so many different systems with shared calendars … and none of them have been very successful.” When asked how this new grading policy would affect teacher coordination, she said she believed that it would affect this but didn’t explain why. She proceeds to say, “We haven’t [fully] used [this new grading policy] yet, so we’ll be able to reassess next year and see what was effective and where are the things we still have to work on.”
Mia F. ’31 presents a solution to this problem, stating: “I feel like it would help teachers if they do big assignments first and smaller assignments after, because some teachers say that they’re really stressed writing comments over break or all weekend. So, it might actually be beneficial because they can get their ideas down before, and not have to cram it all in right before [the] semester change.” This change would also greatly help students, as having large assignments first would spread these projects and tests over multiple weeks, and there wouldn’t be as much stress around schoolwork right before critical periods like before break and before the quarter ends.
Counseling
In the webinar, Middle School Counselor Tori Force said that students who received grades were less receptive to counseling. Specifically, she stated that younger students build skills in longer counseling sessions, while older students seek quick fixes in shorter counseling sessions, and the only change was the appearance of the cumulative letter grade.
Once again, I believe that this is a misdiagnosis of the underlying problem: one thing I noticed while walking through the Middle School looking for interviewees is that there was hardly anyone in the library or out and about. Why? 7th graders have one study hall and one free period every three days, each of which are only 50 minutes long.
On top of this significant lack of free time, the significant increase in homework from 6th to 7th grade combined with lack of trust in the counselors all deter 7th and 8th graders from seeking counseling:
“I don’t really go to the counseling office that much because I don’t like having that much homework after school. It stresses me out, so I try to use all the free time I have to get my homework done,” says Ivy K. ’31.
“Sometimes, I don’t like going to the counselor’s office because tons of my problems are too personal, and I don’t want to talk to anybody outside of my immediate family about it,” says Kate W. ’31.
It is evident that there are many more underlying problems than just a letter grade, including mistrust and lack of time.
Preparedness for the Upper School
In the webinar, Assistant Director of Technology Heather Butler told parents that not having grades in the middle school will not affect student performance in the Upper School. She showed one particular statistic: students whose middle school used cumulative letter grades had an average grade of 92.6%, while students whose middle school didn’t use cumulative letter grades had an average grade of 93.2%.
The presentation of this statistic is misleading. While I understand that this fact was meant for reassurance, the data set is incredibly skewed. The Evergreen School is one of the only middle schools in Washington that doesn’t use cumulative letter grades, meaning that presenting this statistic answers “How do students from Evergreen fare in comparison to other schools?” rather than the smoothness of the transition to the Upper School when Lakeside Middle School stops using letter grades.
Poignantly, Damla I. ’31 asks, “If you’re trying to make us focus less on grades and focus more on learning, then why are you pointing us towards a GPA?”
Out with the Old, In with the New
With letter grades gone, what will be left on middle schoolers’ report cards? “Report cards will still give students a snapshot of where they are in their learning journey four times throughout the year through an assessment of course skills, general student skills, and a narrative comment,” Ms. Abu Rahmeh wrote in her post to the school on January 30, 2026. “We’ll assess skills … using three indicators: Beginning (B), Developing (D), and Proficient (P).” Note that the skill assessments corresponding to BDP are currently in use for all middle schoolers, and the only change going forward is the disappearance of the cumulative letter grade.
Aleks Jovcic, 7th grade dean, comments on this, saying, “A letter grade is like a smoothie, where you’re just taking all this feedback, all these grades you got, and just blending it together. If I see a student has a B+ in the class, it doesn’t really tell me much. It doesn’t tell me whether or not they’re understanding the content versus they just need to get things in on time more often, things like that.”
While I can see how this breakdown of skills is helpful in terms of better knowing what a student needs to improve on, the effect is hindered by students’ natural instinct to connect the BDP scale to a letter grade. Several 7th graders I’ve talked to have mentally correlated the two grading methods: a “proficient” is an A or B, a “developing” is a C or D, and a “beginning” is a fail. This defeats the purpose of several other reasons to stop using cumulative grades, especially ones revolving around intrinsic motivation and stress.
Another compelling argument is that because the BDP scale is not as standardized as letter grades, lines are blurry and feedback is hard to understand. “The BDP scale is so subjective. For example, last year, in one of my classes, ‘developing’ would mean you’re doing so amazing, and then you never get higher than ‘developing.’ But then in another class, ‘developing’ means you’re failing the class, and a ‘proficient’ means you’re doing just enough. But then, in other classes, ‘proficient’ means you’re excelling in the class. You can’t really understand where you are,” explains Damla I. ’31.
I think this is a very valid point, and since BDP will be the standard in the following years, it’s especially crucial that teachers coordinate across departments to find a consensus on what exactly “proficient,” “developing,” and “beginning” truly mean. Students should receive feedback that tells them exactly what they need to do to improve and achieve proficiency, not be left flailing in their attempts to understand.
I acknowledge that many of the points that administrators brought up to support this new policy are very valid, including lowering stress related to long-lasting impact of one small assignment, intrinsic motivation and how it ties to the joy of life-long learning, and encouraging risk-taking. However, several other arguments like decreasing homework load and issues related to academic dishonesty are more strongly related to deep-seated problems embedded in Lakeside’s culture — problems that this new policy will unfortunately not solve.
To administrators reading this: if there’s any place to start, it’s with a simple conversation. Please give the 7th graders the time to get answers to their questions so they’ll go into the 2026-2027 school year prepared, especially when over 70% are staunchly against this decision. And please provide extra guidance for them over the next couple of years as the consequences of this policy — both good and bad — unfold.
