Set formula to ignore blank cells

Hiya. Like Anim8me2 (good question about using formulas to assign letter grades to ranges of values), I am building a grade book for teaching. I really want to get away from my clunky and inelegant gradebook program and should be able to if I can solve this one remaining problem:
THE PROBLEM: My sheet has rows of students with their scores on various assignments listed across in columns. (I set the point value of each assignment separately.) I've got Total and % columns to compute each student's points earned/points possible. This works great when every student is responsible for all assignments, but occasionally students are exempt from some items. How, therefore, can I build a formula that will sense when a cell is empty and adjust down the points possible value accordingly?
Here's a sample of my sheet. How do I make Chaucer's total points figure only on those assignments he's completed (as 48/49 instead of 48/69)?

Thanks, WWJD, I learned something there and tried it out, but I kept getting funky results. Finally figured it out: your solution works to average scores when all assignment values are the same. (I wish I had statistics in college so I'd know the vocab. to use in this situation.)
Unfortunately, my need is still different in that assignments are assigned different total point values, so I need the calculation to (a) disregard cells that are empty while (b) adding up the total points possible for only those cells that have values in them. I hope I'm explaining it well enough.
Give me a relational database and I can do it in a few minutes. (But Numbers is so elegant and if I don't have to use a db I'd rather not.)
CA
Message was edited by: Folklorist
Message was edited by: Folklorist

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