There Have Been and There Will Continue to Be a Number of Questions As We Work Through

WKU 102/201 Grading

There have been and there will continue to be a number of questions as we work through the process of incorporating the WKU curriculum into our traditional BCHS Spanish III curriculum. Last year we began to explore the option of offering a dual credit course in the language department. Our first hurdle was to ensure that we had a teacher who met the criteria. That part we checked off pretty quickly since my masters is in Spanish and I have been invited to teach courses at WKU in the past.

Secondly, we had to cross reference our curriculum with the courses offered at WKU to verify the course credit that we needed to request. When we checked out the other two schools currently in the program, they only offered Sp 102. After inquiring about the content of that course, it became evident that we cover much more during the year. Therefore, we pursued, and were accepted, to offer Sp 201 in addition to the SP 102. We are currently the only school to be allowed this opportunity.

Now we are in the process of fine tuning the way that we will actually handle the details of running the WKU and BCHS programs simultaneously. If I were willing to take the easy out, I would just make all BCHS requirements a part of the WKU grade. However, Spanish has traditionally be a college prep class and there are a number of built-in requirements to BCHS Spanish III that really are just pre-university training (how to do a notebook, the bonus that is offered on so many different grades, etc.) These are not items that would traditionally be graded in a university course but would be understood to already be in place. I still feel that the students need this training so I am going to delete those grades from the WKU grade.

When you look at your grade on Infinite Campus, you will see all the grades. These will all be a part of the BCHS grade. However, not all will be a part of the WKU grade (there are no additional requirements for the university course above and beyond those for BCHS). You will be able to indentify the college prep grades in Infinite Campus because they will have a CP in front of the description, ex. CP Notebook Check 1. Those grades will be subtracted from the total points in order to arrive at the WKU grade. The WKU grades are not posted but one time at the end of the course while here at BCHS quarter grades are posted quarterly. For us that means that the WKU grade posted in December likely will be slightly different than a simple average of the two quarter grades. In January we will begin a whole new WKU grading for Sp 201 while the BCHS Sp III grade will continue into the 3rd and 4th quarters. Thus the WKU grade in May, which will only contain the spring quarter grades minus the CP grades from that time, will most likely vary somewhat from the final grade for BCHS Sp III.

So, how do you calculate your WKU average? Take the value of all grades with a CP in their description away from both the total possible points and the points earned categories and then do the percentage calculation. I hope we will have a seamless and easy blending of the high school and university experiences this year. It is an exciting opportunity.