How do tiered standards affect grade calculations and display?

If your school uses standards-based grading and has more than one tier of standards (think parent and child standards), it's important to understand how these different levels interact with each other for grading purposes. In a nutshell, Schoolrunner can display all standard results independently of each other or it can roll up child results into parent standards.

The setting that determines whether standards are rolled up or evaluated independently is listed under the "Standards-Based Grading" category on the Settings page and is titled "Standards Roll-Up".

If this setting is left empty (or has a value of "0"), Schoolrunner will display and evaluate all standards independently, and the relation between parent, child, and grandchild standards will be irrelevant. Course grades will be determined by an average of every standard that has results.

Schoolrunner identifies parent standards as level 1, child standards as level 2, grandchild standards as level 3, and so on.

When a value is entered in this setting, it tells our system to report out on the standards of that level, but use the average results of its children and grandchildren (if any exist). In other words, a "1" entered here tells our system to report out the names of level 1 (parent) standards, but average the results of child standards for the actual numbers we display. A "2" entered here tells our system to report out the names of level 2 (child) standards, but average and use the results of any grandchild standards.

Note: When you roll up to level 1, teachers will not be able to assign results to standards of that level; they will only see child standards (and below, if applicable), and Schoolrunner will average those results into level 1 standards. If you roll up to level 2, teachers will not be able to assign results to level 1 or level 2; they will only see grandchild (and below, if applicable) standards, and Schoolrunner will average those results into level 2 standards. Level 1 standards, in this case, will be entirely irrelevant.

Exception: If you roll up standards, and you have a parent standard with no child standards, you will be able to use that childless parent standard. If child standards are later added for that parent standard, previous results for the parent will be ignored.

Here's an example of how standards could be tiered in Schoolrunner:

If the roll-up setting is left blank (or set to 0), our system will list and evaluate each of these standard results independently. This is the simplest way to calculate and display standards, because all standards are shown and weighted evenly. A student's overall performance for these standards would look something like this:

If the roll-up setting is set to "1", Schoolrunner will report out the parent standard (in green) but teachers will not be able to log results directly for the parent. Schoolrunner will look at results of the children (in blue). Although, results of child standards will also be ignored in favor of any existing grandchild results (in red). It is the average of grandchild and child standards that is shown next to the parent standard for reporting purposes.

If the roll-up setting is set to "2", Schoolrunner will report out the child standards (in green) based on grandchild results (in blue). Neither the parent standard (in gray) nor the child standard will be selectable by teachers. Schoolrunner will only allow results to be tagged to grandchild standards.

One final note: the roll-up setting is not limited to levels 1, 2, or even 3. You can use further levels of standards (great-grandchild [level 4], great-great-grandchild [level 5], etc.). However, the deeper standards go, the more likely it is to cause confusion for parents, teachers, and staff members, so please keep that in mind as you structure your standards!