New grading scale proposed

Superintendent Adam Bird wants to even the playing field for New Richmond High School students when it comes to competition for college scholarships.

“We’re trying to help our students be a little more competitive when it comes to earning scholarships at the collegiate level,” explained Bird who will ask the New Richmond Board of Education to approve a new grading scale this spring when the Student Handbooks are approved for the 2011-12 school year.

“We’ve learned from colleges that when it comes to awarding scholarships our students are at a competitive disadvantage compared to students from other schools because of our grading scale.”

Currently it takes a 94 average to get an A at New Richmond and that puts the school’s graduates at a disadvantage compared to students graduating from schools using the traditional 90, 80, 70, 60 percent grading scale.

“We have surveyed other schools and we have found that many of them do have a grading scale like that,” said Bird. “So when our students get a 93 percent grade in a class it will show up as a B. If a student gets a 93 at Indian Hill, Anderson, Milford or Upper Arlington, it shows up as an A on their transcript.”

The new grading scale will include plus and minus grades and will be weighted for honors (college prep classes) and AP (advanced placement) classes.

“There’s a big difference between 90 and 99 percent,” said Bird. “We want to help the student who gets a 90, but when it comes to their GPA it’s going to show as a 3.7 which is higher than the 3.0 they receive under the old system. But it’s not as high as the 4.0 that the student who gets a 99 in the class will receive.”

The proposed grading scale will award a 3.7 GPA for 90-92 percent (A-) in a regular class and 4.0 for 93-96 (A) and 97-100 (A+). Students in honors classes will receive a 4.2 GPA for 90-92, and 4.5 GPA for grades of 93-96 and 97-100. Students taking AP courses would receive a 4.7 GPA for an A- and 5.0 for an A or A+.

“ Currently a student with a B in an AP class gets a 3.75 GPA and we know that a student getting a B in an AP class is working harder than a student in gym class and a student in gym class getting an A receives a 4.0,” said Bird.