As the 2025–26 school year closes, teachers turn their focus to the grade book. But in the final weeks of school, they part ways with a style of grading that was used for decades, as Bend-La Pine Schools makes a drastic change in the way students earn their marks. 

In the fall of 2026, Bend-La Pine Schools will transition to a new grading style known as standards-based grading, and the change has not gone well. 

Standards-based grading is a grading style that focuses on students’ ability to meet certain standards from a proficiency standpoint versus a point accumulation system, such as the 1 through 100 system, which has been used for decades. 

Bend-La Pine Schools claims that “instead of averaging scores over time, standards based grading evaluates the most recent and consistent demonstration of learning. Each assignment or assessment is tied to a specific learning target, and students receive feedback that helps them understand their progress and next steps.”

It sounds helpful on the surface, but as we dig deeper into the conventions of standards-based grading, a common fear among teachers is that the program is setting students up for failure, and eliminating learning from mistakes via constant do-overs. 

The district counters, “As students complete assignments, projects and assessments, they receive individual scores for each standard based on their demonstrated level of understanding. Over time, these scores are used to determine an overall score for each standard.”

The reality is, there are downsides. According to teachers, the system has been incredibly difficult to implement. 

But the district continues to mandate this new policy and many teachers who are forced to implement this new grading style feel that it’s not the most effective way to grade students.

“I have been teaching for a long time,” said one anonymous teacher. “We are doing our kids no favors with standards-based grading. No university of any standing uses a system like this. The formative work, which is a super important part of the learning process, holds no weight. I think we will find that the lack of due dates and constant reassessment takes its toll on teachers. We already don’t have enough staff as is and the extra time it takes to assess and re-assess will lead to continued teacher burnout.”

Teachers we spoke to for this article did not want to be named due to fear of being punished by the district. More to this point, one teacher mentioned that Bend-La Pine Schools is essentially ignoring teacher input and relying on the input and opinions of those who are removed from an actual classroom setting. 

But the change continues moving forward, and it’s not due to a lack of protest from our teachers. An English teacher at Summit has been protesting the change and is fed up with the way Bend-La Pine Schools is managing it. 

“I can say with a hundred percent certainty that the teachers in this building who are piloting standards-based grading this year have been screaming from the rooftops towards the district with their concerns and frustrations and the response, or lack of response, from those who make the decisions have been difficult to deal with,” said an anonymous English teacher.

And they’re not exaggerating. The outcry has been immense, but the district hasn’t been open to truly listening to feedback from educators. 

“I have cried multiple times about this,” said another anonymous teacher. “I have been a teacher for 12 years and I have never had more anxiety about my job.”

So why are we implementing this new system if teachers are so vehemently against it? The answer lies in the hands of those who adopted standards-based grading for Bend-La Pine Schools. 

Katie Legace has been the Executive Director of High Schools for Bend-La Pine Schools since 2018, and has worked for the district for 29 years with roles as educator and principal.  For the past four years, she has been working with other Bend-La Pine Schools admin to develop the district’s implementation of standards-based grading. 

Legace explained that the idea for standards based grading started back in 2018 when the district was investigating grading. 

“We noticed huge discrepancies between As and Bs and Fs so we started digging,” she said. “Why are we seeing these differences? We just really started looking at, you know, what do we feel grades should mean and stand for?”

The solution they found was standards-based grading. 

“We worked with the people teaching the course to develop standards we could all agree on, and then had them teach with that standard,” said Legace.

So if Bend-La Pine Schools communicated with teachers, where is the frustration coming from? 

“If standards-based grading was done in a way to reflect the way high school should be taught, it would not really affect anything,” said a Summit teacher. “But they aren’t.”

When we addressed the concerns from our teachers, such as people crying and having strong anxiety about the minimal response from the district, the reply seemed empathetic, but not worthy of a change. 

“We certainly don’t want them to feel that way. That’s not a healthy environment and we don’t want to create that,” stated Legace. 

The district placed the responsibility on teachers to learn this new system. 

“We’d love them collaborating with other teachers and we will continue to provide those opportunities,” Legace said. “We do a weekly virtual meeting where teachers can pop in, ask questions and share ideas and we have teachers who share their thoughts, but we don’t always get a lot of participation.”

While opportunities to speak are available, teachers question if they are legitimately being listened to, or just heard and placated. Some teachers have mentioned they stopped going to the meetings all together because they feel hopeless. 

“I was at a meeting, and suggested something that was a big concern. The admin of the meeting said that they would address it but when I got to the next meeting, they seemed to ignore my concern, and this happened multiple times,” said a Summit teacher.

Our teachers work tirelessly to ensure that students feel supported, cared for and prepared for the real world.  They need to feel heard, supported and valued the way they strive to make their students feel. Education is the key to our future, and teachers cannot be ignored. 

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela