Talbot Third- to Fifth-Graders Trade Letter Grades for a Four-Level Scale This School Year

EASTON, MARYLAND — Third-, fourth- and fifth-graders in Talbot County Public Schools are no longer graded with traditional letter grades this school year. The district now uses competency-based standards for every grade from prekindergarten through fifth.

The change is part of a set of new grading practices TCPS announced Aug. 14 for the 2026-2027 school year. The district said it reviewed its grading over the past year with teachers, administrators and families, and called the changes an effort "to make grading more accurate, consistent, and transparent." Before this year, students in grades 3 through 5 received letter grades.

Under the new system, related skills within a subject are grouped into competency standards, assessed together and reported on a four-level scale instead of a single letter. The levels are:

A fifth mark, NM for Not Measured, means a skill has not yet been taught or assessed in that marking period.

TCPS said the scale "shows what a student can actually do, rather than compressing that into a single letter." The district also said it creates one consistent reporting model across every elementary grade.

Two other elementary changes come with it. Parents and guardians will be able to see progress on individual assignments and observations throughout the marking period, not just when report cards come out. And progress is judged as both academic and developmental, using work samples, performance-based tasks, observation and classroom curriculum assessments.

Middle and high school students have a different change. In grades 6 through 12, everyday formative work now counts for 40% of the reported grade, up from 30%, and summative work counts for 60%, down from 70%.