When Oak Park and River Forest High School teacher Peter Ruzicka was looking for a new grading scale 11 years ago, he reached for something unconventional.

The four-point grading scale is an alternative method for assessing students’ work that includes just four levels. Different teachers have varied in their approach to this scale and are working to find the best teaching method.

Ruzicka, a sociology, U.S. history and college prep teacher, said that he saw a problem with the 100-point scale when students would come up to him and ask the difference between letter grades. Dealing with the 100-point scale was like “trying to jump through a bunch of hoops to accumulate all the points they want, like in a video game.”

Mike Stephen, a civics, history and sociology teacher at OPRF, explained that with the four-point scale, points are assigned to different skills. This allows teachers to compare skill development and collaborate more effectively. Plus, it requires teachers to be more objective.

Additionally, Stephen said the 100-point grading scale has “become a numbers game, and at the end of the day in that traditional grading scale…0 to 59 is an F. What’s the difference between a 59% and a 14%? An F is an F. And at that point, that scale, mathematically, is just punishing a kid.”

He added, “This is so arbitrary, you know? Why 90, why not 95? Why not 97? We have 100 points on a grading scale because it’s mathematically easy to do…We should be thinking about mastering skills, or at least being proficient, and when more development is needed, indicating that.”

Clementine Perry, a junior at OPRF, said that the four-point grading scale makes measuring progress simpler and offers a broader range. She believes that this range is useful and has helped her maintain her grades. “It was super easy to understand the grading scale. What was confusing about it is that no other class used it.”

Sophomores Xavier Martin, Matthew Bell and Elise Cooper shared a similar opinion about the four-point grading scale. Cooper said that she likes how it shows an in-depth example of how well she’s doing, and that she can see much more of the specifics compared to other scales. Martin said this scale helps neutralize the effects of a zero, and he believes it’s effective to have a wider range in grading.

For Bell, however, it depends. “It doesn’t really matter too much, because you’re analyzing how your teacher is teaching and presenting different details in the classroom. So I think it’s about that more than anything, and teachers are going to do whatever they think is best. So you should be able to adapt and that’s just a life skill in itself.”

Ruzicka expressed his hope for OPRF to switch to the four-point grading scale, but “as people, we fear change, and in this case, some fear switching [to the four-point scale] because the way they’ve been grading has always been 100 points. Also, the 100-point scale can be very subjective in grading, and it takes time to adjust to a rubric-based four-point scale.”

Ruzicka urged other teachers to try the four-point scale. “Is this going to be hard for some? Sure. But this is stuff we should be improving upon anyway. Once we adjust it’ll become easy.” At the end of the day, said Ruzicka, “We, teachers, should be evolving with the students.”