The Eastern Pulaski School Board approved a new grading scale that will be put in place for the 2016-2017 school year. The new grading scale will be utilized in all three schools. It will be a standard scale used in much of the rest of the state’s school systems.
The new grading scale will be: A- 100-90, B- 90-80, C- 80-70, D- 70-60, and F- 60 and below. The old scales were a bit more challenging. The high school and middle school’s scales were A- 100-92, B- 91-83, C- 82-74, D- 73-63, F- 62 and below. The middle school differed slightly with D- 73-62 and F- 61 and below. The elementary school’s old scale was A- 100-96, B- 95-86, C- 85-76, D- 75-70, F- 69 and below.
This change comes mainly in order to be more comparable with area schools. Some school corporations have differing scales within the school system. But in general, schools like West Central, Pioneer, Knox, North Judson-San Pierre, and Clinton Central use the same structure as Eastern Pulaski is adopting. Also, as pointed out by board member Terri Johnston, many of the 6A “super schools” also use this kind of grading scale.
One of the main discussions of why they should not adopt a new scale is that people might think that a relaxed scale may lower student expectations. However, Superintendent Dan Foster stressed that that is not what they are doing. Elementary School Principal Jill Collins added that teachers can find ways to continue to push students to do their best even with a relaxed grading scale.
