Report Card Grade vs Gradebook Cumulative?

Nathan Ong
Nathan Ong
Third Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud K–12 Education Solutions™ General Discussions

Our school year is 4 quarters long (students get a grade and report card each quarter), and 2 semesters total (each semester is 2 quarters, semester grade awarded at the end of 2nd and 4th quarters).

We have the following set up to calculate a semester grade as the average of two quarter grades:

jdA_yPoqJBOAVYoVHmZJ8BvFee6VhHWSP7CYHyg2

Just wondering what's the difference between Report Card Grade or Grade Book Cumulative? Does it matter which one you use (or what if you input something for both)?

Thanks!

Comments

  • Brian Gray
    Brian Gray Community All-Star
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    @Nathan Ong - The Grade Book Cumulative grade uses the numeric average from the gradebook for each term when calculating the semester grade. The Report Card Grade uses the numeric equivalent of the grade on the report card for each term to calculate the semester grade.

    There are a couple of cases where those choices can lead to different results.

    • If the teacher does not use the grade book to record assignment grades, there will be no Grade Book Cumulative grade to use. (The teacher would have to manually enter a grade for the each term, and then the Grading page would calculate the semester grade based on the grades enter for each term.)
    • If the teacher bumps the term letter grade up after the calculation, using the Grade Book Cumulative in the calculation will result in the student not getting the benefit of the bumped grade when calculating the semester grade.

    In my school, we don't have semesters, but we run into the same question with the fall term marking period grade and exam grade (used to calculate the fall term grade).

    For example, the teacher records assignment grades in the gradebook, and the student's average for the fall marking period is 86.92 (very close to the line between B and B+). The teacher uses the calculate button to enter the marking period grades on the Grading page, so the student's grade is recorded as a B. The teacher decides to modify to B+.

    When calculating the term grade, if the formula uses the Grade Book Cumulative, the student's grade will be calculated using 86.92. If the formula uses the Report Card Grade, the average will be calculated using the numeric equivalent of a B+.

  • Susan Ott
    Susan Ott
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 3 Name Dropper Participant

    @Nathan Ong - a similar but slightly different situation as one @Brian Gray mentions, if you are using letter grades, you can have quite a discrepancy in a semester grade. If you use the report card grade, it will use the grade equivalent from your grade translation in the calculation which will not be the same as the actual grade from the gradebook. If the grade equivalent for a B is an 84.5 but the student's actual gradebook average is 86.4, the student isn't getting the benefit of those 1.9 extra points being calculated into the semester grade. That can make the difference between a B and a B+.

  • Vanessa Noe
    Vanessa Noe
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
    a79f241dcbc8a2bc47d148de655e5247-huge-sc
    272b57a47d838be628b9939615554f04-huge-sc

    @Nathan Ong you can also use report card grade if something other than the gradebook grades go into the semester grade. i.e. our semester grade is 40% Q1 + 40% Q2 + 20% semester exam. I use grade book cum for the quarter grades and then the teacher enters the exam numeric grade (out of 100) into the grading screen then the Semester formula pulls it all together.

  • Nathan Ong
    Nathan Ong
    Third Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant

    @Brian Gray Thank you for the example as well, really elucidated that for me!

Categories