With any system, people will look for ways to game it.

In August, Pembroke Academy introduced a Competency-based Grading (CBG) system, and while it seems paradoxical, students are already finding ways to manipulate it by throwing grades or intentionally not doing assignments.

With CBG, each competency is determined by a mode, making it easier for students to maintain the same grade while skipping multiple assignments. Students are realizing that not doing an assignment may not affect their competency or holistic grade. In fact, it may improve it.

“I have purposefully not done an assignment because I knew it wouldn’t affect my grade,” said junior Samantha Cali. “The grading system makes it easier for students to not do an assignment and feel like there is no consequence. Students would feel more pressure to do their assignments if it wasn’t graded by mode.”

This works in the opposite way as well. If a student has received a grade of “4” (Competent with Distinction), but their competency grade is a “3” (Competent), that higher grade may have no impact on what they receive in the class.

However, fewer grades in a particular competency may inspire a different type of manipulation, and the math can sound mind-boggling to someone unfamiliar with the system.

For example, consider a competency where a students received one “3” and two “4’s”: With the mode grading system, if a student were receive another 3, the overall competency grade would be a “3”.

As a result, students have been intentionally throwing their grades, receiving “2’s”(Basic Competence), “1’s” (Developing Competence), or refusing to do the assignment, to keep their grade where they want it.

“I’d rather get a ‘0’ [Insufficient Evidence] than a ‘2’, to keep my overall grade at a ‘4’ because I have more ‘2’s’ than ‘0’s,” said sophomore Sophia Gulo.

And teachers are starting to notice this change.

“It hasn’t happened to me, personally, but I have witnessed a conversation between a teacher and student,” said math teacher Mrs. Donnelly. “The student was absent and refused to take the test because it wouldn’t affect their grade.”

The gaming of the system is something PA administration believes will eventually catch up to students.

“I would say that in any system, students make ways to game the system, and some of the examples in regards to mode would have been avoided if students had the opportunity to reassess for full credit,” said director of curriculum Mr. Morris. “It’s very similar to students not doing formative work and it is still a reflection of the student’s work ethic.”