The philosophy of the Board concerning academic achievement is based on the premise that children have diverse capabilities and interests and individual patterns of growth and learning.

Therefore, the Board feels it important that teachers have as much and as accurate knowledge of each student as is possible through tests and observations of students’ intelligence, achievement, work habits, skills, health, and home environment.

The Board recognizes that many factors which cannot be clinically tested—attitude

toward others and work habits, for example—may influence a student’s success in school as much as his knowledge of subject areas.

In fairness to each student, achievement will be judged by assessing each student’s work in relation to his or her own progress, and also in terms of his or her degree of mastery of the course work in relation to his or her peer group.