Page 1 of 10 · Introduction

Why we changed the way we grade

CPA has made some important changes to how students are graded. This page explains why — and why it matters for you.

Something important changed in the world

For a long time, schools measured learning using quizzes, tests, worksheets, and written assignments. That worked well when the only way to finish an assignment was to actually do the work yourself.

But today, AI tools like ChatGPT are free and easy for anyone to use. A student can type a question into one of these tools and get back a finished essay, a completed worksheet, or even quiz answers — in seconds. The problem is that a teacher looking at that work often cannot tell whether the student wrote it or an AI did.

This means grades based only on submitted work can no longer be trusted to show what a student actually knows.

"The real question is no longer whether the work got done. It is whether the student actually learned anything."

CPA chose a better path

Instead of trying to catch students using AI, CPA asked a bigger question: what does it really mean to learn something? The answer goes back to who CPA has always been. Our Expected Schoolwide Learning Results describe students who are faith-filled, self-directed, thoughtful, and academically prepared. Our grading system should match those beliefs.

Page 2 of 10 · Benefits

What this means for you

The new grading model was built with every person in the CPA community in mind — students, teachers, and parents.

For students

Your grade will finally show all of who you are

Under the old system, a student who showed up every session, worked hard, asked great questions, and lived out their faith could still get a low grade if they did badly on tests. That was unfair.

The new model fixes that. Your grade now reflects how you show up, how prepared you are, how you grow over time, and how you explain what you learned in your scheduled meeting with your teacher. If you struggle on multiple-choice tests but can explain ideas clearly and defend your work in a real conversation, your grade will show that.

"You cannot fake a real conversation with your teacher. And you should never have to."

For teachers

Teaching the way it was always meant to be

Teaching was never supposed to be about collecting stacks of papers. It was supposed to be about relationships — a mentor and a student, thinking and growing together.

The new model gives teachers back what made them want to teach in the first place — real conversations with real students, where professional judgment and personal mentorship are the most important tools in the room.

Under the new model, a teacher’s professional opinion is formally part of the grade. The Teacher Conviction component exists because no computer can replace the judgment of a trained educator who has met with a student all semester in scheduled sessions.

For parents

A grade you can trust

When your student earns a grade under this model, that grade reflects their attendance, their preparation, their verified understanding, their faith in action, and their growth over time — not just a score from a computer-graded test.

Page 3 of 10 · Model overview

The holistic grading model

Your grade is no longer based on one thing. It is built from six different categories that together give a complete picture of who you are as a student.

Two tiers that work together

The model is organized into two tiers. The first tier covers things that apply to every class you take. The second tier covers what happens inside each specific class. Together they make up 100% of your grade.

Tier 1 — Holistic (applies to all your classes equally)

Tier 2 — Class-specific (graded separately for each course)

What your overall grade looks like

Understanding the weights

The Curriculum Grade carries the most weight at 40%. This is the largest single category because your academic performance in the digital textbook is still central to your education.

The Meeting Content — Learning Verification category is the second largest at 30%. Even though it is smaller than the curriculum grade on paper, it is the most meaningful category in Tier 2. It is the one place where your genuine understanding is proven live, in real time, directly to your teacher. An AI tool cannot sit in that meeting for you.

Together these two categories account for 70% of your grade — rewarding both consistent academic performance and the ability to show that you actually learned what you were studying.

Page 4 of 10 · Category 1

Class-specific tier · 40% of overall grade

Curriculum Grade

Your curriculum grade is the largest single category in your overall grade. It is based on your performance in the digital textbook (Edmentum/Apex curriculum) and counts for 40% of your final grade.

What this grade measures

This is the grade shown in your digital textbook. It includes your quiz scores, test scores, and graded activity scores. No adjustments are made to this number — the teacher enters it exactly as the digital textbook displays it.

Missing or late work is handled directly inside the digital textbook. If an assignment is not submitted, a zero is entered there, which lowers your curriculum grade naturally. There is no separate penalty system — the textbook grade tells the full story.

How this connects to learning verification

The curriculum grade (40%) and the Meeting Content — Learning Verification category (30%) are designed to work together. Your curriculum grade reflects how you performed on assessments in the digital textbook. Your learning verification score reflects whether you can actually explain and defend what you learned when you sit down with your teacher in your scheduled meeting.

A student with a strong curriculum grade who can also defend their learning in scheduled meetings will earn the highest overall grades. A student with a high curriculum grade who cannot explain the material will see that reflected in their learning verification score.

Page 5 of 10 · Category 2

Holistic tier · 10% of overall grade

Meeting Attendance

Every section you meet one-on-one with your teacher in a scheduled meeting. That meeting is one of the most important parts of your education at CPA. This category grades how well you show up for it.

Three things are graded in every meeting

Your meeting attendance score is made up of three parts that add up to 10 points per section. Your average across all 18 sections becomes your meeting attendance grade for the semester.

Attendance scoring

Punctuality scoring

Preparation scoring

Being fully prepared means all of the following are true at the start of the meeting:

• All assigned work for the section is completed
• All courses are open to the assigned section in the digital textbook
• The end-of-section self-reflection is open in a separate tab for each course
• Assignments are organized and ready to walk your teacher through
• You can speak to what you learned and what you plan to present

Key policies

Page 6 of 10 · Categories 3 and 4

Regular Engagement and Community Values

Two categories that together make up 10% of your grade. Both recognize that being a CPA student means showing up consistently and living out your values every day.

Holistic tier · 5% of overall grade

Regular Engagement

This category measures how consistently you engage with your schoolwork throughout the week. The goal is not just whether work gets done — it is whether you are showing up regularly and spreading your effort across multiple days rather than cramming everything into one session.

What counts as engagement

Full-time students (regular semester): Your teacher looks at both your Daily Discussion Forum (DDF) participation and your digital textbook login activity. The DDF is required every school day for full-time students. Missing DDF posts may lower your engagement score at your teacher’s discretion, even if your textbook logins are strong.

Part-time students: Engagement is measured primarily through digital textbook logins. The DDF is not required for part-time students. If you voluntarily post in the DDF during a week where your textbook engagement was weak, your teacher may use that as a recovery signal — raising your score by up to 1 point. This is a recovery tool, not a bonus.

Scoring — 5 points per section

Holistic tier · 5% of overall grade

Faith-Based Community Values in Action (Faith-in-Action)

Each section, as part of your pre-meeting reflection, you identify one of ten ESLR standards and describe a specific way you put it into practice — in school, at home, or in your community. This is the applied expression of Faith-Based Community Values in Action.

This is not graded on how spiritual you sound. It is graded on whether you made a genuine effort to reflect and act. All students — including non-Christian students — can earn full credit.

The ten Faith-in-Action standards

How it is scored

Page 7 of 10 · Category 5

Class-specific tier · 30% of overall grade · The signature assessment

Meeting Content — Learning Verification

This is the heart of the new model. Each section you sit down with your teacher in a scheduled meeting and show what you actually learned. No AI tool can do this for you.

"Think of it like a thesis defense at a high school level. Your teacher is asking: do you actually know this? Can you prove it?"

What this looks like in practice

Before your meeting, you choose completed work — assignments, notes, or projects — and bring it to present to your teacher. Your teacher may ask you to explain concepts, solve problems in real time, translate a sentence, discuss a theme in a book, or defend an argument you made in a paper.

Scored out of 20 points per section — four components

Your learning verification is scored across four components that add up to 20 points. Your average across all 18 sections becomes your learning verification grade for the semester.

Component 1 — Depth of Understanding · 10 points

Can you explain concepts clearly in your own words? Can you connect ideas across lessons?

Component 2 — Responsiveness to Questioning · 4 points

How well do you handle questions you did not prepare for?

Component 3 — Growth Awareness & Ownership · 4 points

Do you know where you stand? Can you identify your gaps and describe what you will do about them?

Component 4 — Teacher Conviction · 2 points

After the meeting, does the teacher believe you genuinely learned the material? This is the AI-integrity check built into every single meeting.

The portfolio approach

You are not limited to presenting only the current section’s work. You can bring a portfolio of work from any section — including older ones — to demonstrate your learning and show growth over time. Students who are behind can still earn meeting content points by defending whatever work they have completed at the time of the meeting.

Page 8 of 10 · Student examples

Three students — three very different stories

The holistic model rewards real learning, genuine effort, and strong character — and it catches students who let AI do their work for them. Here are three real-number examples.

Page 9 of 10 · Category 6 and model review

Class-specific tier · 10% of overall grade

Assigned Work Completion

This category measures one simple thing: did you complete and turn in the work that was assigned to you for each section?

"Completing an assignment matters. But proving you understood it matters a whole lot more."

Completing the work still matters — but this category is based on completion status, not quality. Quality and genuine understanding are measured separately in your scheduled meeting. This design is intentional. If a student turns in AI-generated work, they earn completion points — but very few learning verification points because they cannot explain it.

How it is scored — simple 10-point scale

Model review — how all the pieces connect

Page 10 of 10 · Grade summary

The Full Picture — Grading Scale and Multi-Course View

This final page shows the complete grading scale, how grades work across multiple courses, and a summary of everything you need to know to succeed under the new model.

The grading scale

How grades work across multiple courses

• The holistic tier (Meeting Attendance, Regular Engagement, Faith-in-Action — 20% combined) uses the same score for every course you are taking. If you earn 90% on Meeting Attendance, that 90% applies to all your courses equally.
• The class-specific tier (Curriculum, Assigned Work, Learning Verification — 80% combined) is graded separately for each course. Your History grade and your Math grade are calculated independently.

Sample: student enrolled in 3 courses

* Holistic tier scores (teal) are identical across all three courses because they measure the whole student, not subject-specific performance.

What you need to remember