Beginning in the 2025-2026 school year, a lot of changes and policies were put into place for the Mehlville School District, one of which is that the school district no longer allows teachers to give extra credit to students.
However, some students and teachers are confused as to why this policy was put into place.
“The no-extra-credit policy, I really would like to know the origin of the policy. I don’t really know where the policy came from,” social studies teacher Kara Beck said. “I understand limiting extra credit when it’s given to an extent that it radically changes a grade. But I do think that there is value to extra credit, depending on what the assignment is.”
According to assistant principal Dana Skrabacz, the decision for this district update came about after individual schools talked about extra credit and the impact it had on student grades, which then formed the basis for district administration to examine the use of extra credit.
“…this is something that’s happening through the whole district. The focus was on making sure that our grades reflected what students know and their progress towards standards, as far as like a certain content or priority standards, that kind of thing, rather than being about anything else,” Skrabacz said. “And so extra credit could take away from painting a clear picture of students’ understanding of the material.”
Having no extra credit may turn out to be a learning curve for both students and teachers. Social studies teacher Daniel Richter is adjusting that way he teaches his Honors US History class. In past years, Richter offered study guides for five points of extra credit and added them up at the end of the semester. He also offered bonus questions at the end of each test.
“Ultimately, I’m reducing content in order to increase in-class study time so that we can save some grades,” Richter said.
Additionally, the Spanish department used to do “build your own extra credit” and used extra credit to encourage students to immerse themselves into Spanish outside of the classroom.
“Our trouble with it in world language was we encouraged students to go outside the building and explore language beyond our walls. So going to the International Festival or the Festival of Nations or Hispanic Festival coming up soon, those are extensions of our classroom and we can’t require students to do that…” Spanish teacher Jennifer Straatmann said. “So it was something extra beyond our curriculum that we felt warranted extra credit, you know.”
Besides teachers, some students are also adjusting to the new policy.
“… I think that a little bit of extra credit here and there, especially towards the end of semester, isn’t a terrible thing, especially if it’s just like an extra assignment,” Addison Hebden (11) said, “because if you’re willing to put a work, I think you should be rewarded for that.”
Hebden believes that extra credit in certain classes was very helpful, especially during the end of a semester.
“It helped me a lot in AP World because you were always kind of unsure about how assignments would turn out,” Hebden said. “And so on our final project, the extra credit helped, and then the few bonus questions on the content quizzes were nice…”
The expectation is that with his new policy, students will not be able to earn more than 100% in any class or on any assignment. But though students won’t be able to complete extra credit assignments to raise their grades, teachers are offering alternative methods to demonstrate that they have learned the content or shown improvement. This allows for teachers to still provide “challenge questions” to help recoup points when students are struggling. Some teachers, however, have had to ask further questions to understand exactly what the policy means.
“… I’ve gotten questions like what exactly does it mean as far as like, I’ve had math teachers ask can we still offer challenge questions or something on an assessment. And the answer is yes,” Skrabacz said. “They just can’t take them beyond that 100%. So clarity questions, yes (are okay)…”
Skrabacz thinks this policy will benefit students because ultimately their grade will be a reflection of what they actually know, rather than how much extra credit they can earn to pass their classes.
“I absolutely think that grades should reflect what a student knows in the content and not how great of a student they are, that kind of thing, just more like what is their understanding of the material,” Skrabacz said. “So I don’t personally really see any drawbacks [to this policy].”
