To account for the increased academic rigor of certain high school courses, the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) has made changes to the way high school GPAs are calculated for the Hathaway Scholarship.

According to a news release from WDE on Feb. 20, 2018, the state will adopt a 5.0 scale beginning with the 2018-19 school year to determine the level of the Hathaway Scholarship awarded. Districts will be required to display the weighted Hathaway GPA on all student transcripts. To read some Quick Facts on the change, visit the following site: http://hathawayscholarship.org/hathaway-scholarship/gpa-grade-weighting/

The Hathaway scholarship, created by state lawmakers in 2005, is a $400 million permanent endowment designed to provide an incentive for Wyoming students to prepare for and pursue post-secondary education within the state.

The program consists of four separate merit scholarships, each with its own eligibility requirements, and a need-based scholarship for eligible students to supplement the merit awards. Every Wyoming middle and high school student is automatically eligible for the scholarship by maintaining a certain GPA, test scores, and class requirements through high school.

NCTE has published three position statements on a variety of grading practices, including stances on machine scoring, grading student writing, and formative assessment. In addition, there are three published journal articles or blogs that address different grading stances.

See https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/EJ/1031-sep2013/EJ1031Better.pdf, http://nctesecondary.blogspot.com/2009/12/grrrrrading.html and https://ncte.org/blog/2017/09/grade-cultivating-intellectual-play-students/

The newly-approved 5.0 scale will apply to only Hathaway-approved Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and +1000-level and above dual and/or concurrent enrollment courses. All other courses will retain the 4.0 scale.

The state department will hold several online sessions through March 29 to address the policy in detail. To sign up for a session, interested participants can email hathawayscholarship@wyo.gov.