By Rupert Howell

School trustees for the South Panola District voted to adopt the modified 10-point grading scale at Tuesday’s June meeting following discussion at previous meetings and the final recommendation by Superintendent Dr. Keith Shaffer.

Shaffer had asked for input from staff and told trustees that there were, “No substantive negatives,” received from staff members concerning the modified 10 point scale, but said the policy may have to be “tweaked” later if found not to be working well.

With the new scale: an A is 100-90; B, 89-80; C, 79-70; D, 69-65 and an F is below 64.

Under the new policy there will be no nine-weeks tests for students in grades K-6; no nine-weeks tests for any students at the end of  the first and third nine-weeks; the lowest average for first nine-weeks only is 50 and a cumulative exam will be given in grades 7-12 at the end of the second and fourth nine-week sessions.

The recommendation to eliminate nine-weeks tests  was made to offset an extraordinary amount of time used to prepare for and take state and federal mandated tests during the school year. Grades from chapter and unit tests will be used to determine those nine-weeks’ averages.

The minimum score of 50 during the first nine-weeks was to help students who might “dig a hole” deeper than they could get out of even though their grades improved drastically for the remainder the year. That minimum grade replaces the minimum grade of 60 given to all students making 60 or below.

Shaffer explained that the 60 minimum didn’t give students enough incentive to work for an additional 10 points to pass. He also said not having a minimum of 50 during the first nine-weeks would cause classroom management problems with students who knew they could not pass no matter how hard they tried.

The new grading policy also states that each nine-weeks’ average will be obtained by the average of all graded work for that period and the semester average will be obtained by taking each nine-weeks average times three, adding the cumulative exam and dividing by seven, making the final exam count approximately 15 percent of the final average.

Other promotion and retention policies adopted during the June meeting included: grades K-2, an average of 65 or better must be attained in reading, language and mathematics; grades 3-5, an average of 65 must be attained in all subject areas; Grades 6-8, an average of 65 must be attained in English and math and the student may fail to meet a 65 average in only one core subject and be promoted; grades 9-12, an average of 65 must be attained in five Carnegie units and the cumulative number of units must be in line for graduation.

Special consideration is given to students in grades 6-8 who fail a required course with 60 or higher and score proficient or advanced on the Mississippi Curriculum Test (MCT).

Also, special consideration may be given in promotion for Carnegie unit based classes at grades 7 and 8: pre-algebra, algebra I and computer discovery.