After a year full of boring letters, students decided to give feedback to the school board after their work had been seen as having a “deeper meaning.” This feedback was collected by the school, and the administration decided to implement emoji grading.

During the 2026 school year, we were asked to interview students about their creative works as letter grading was officially dismissed. One Junior named Roderigo stated, “My mom can finally stop yelling at me because she does not understand my grades anymore. Though I feel confused when I see a praying emoji since I’m not really sure what this represents, but at least my mom doesn’t understand either!”

Teachers also feel that it is important to interpret the vibes of their homework assignment. This has a much more unpopular opinion surrounding Always High School, though. Freshman Andrew stated, “Now I can’t do my homework in the back of the class because my teacher always gets suspicious vibes about why I’m sitting there, and I always fail.”

Another student stated, “Good vibes equal good life, especially when I see the palm tree grade. That means I can take two weeks off to go to Hawaii.”

Next, we decided to interview teachers about their reasons behind their grades using one student’s grade book in particular.

AP Human Geography teacher Kayla Koala stated, “My favorite emoji to give out is the horror face because it really motivates my students to just do their work without looking at the grade… no matter the result.”

Spanish teacher Vondra Velesquez stated, “I just pray for all of my students that they will soon accomplish the present tense, hopefully before IB year, oh lord have mercy on my students.”

Overall, this new system has yet to be proven successful, but it is always nice for a lively change in students’ lives, especially in the grade book.