Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) will be revamping its grading regulations to “restore clarity and establish high expectations for students,” for the 2025-2026 school year, according to a Thursday presentation to the school board.
“I just want to clap and just almost jump out of my chair,” board Vice President Grace Rivera-Oven said after the presentation. “This has been long overdue … . We’re not helping our kids. … We were not getting them ready for college.”
Parents and MCPS educators have long complained about the impact of shifting grading policies in recent years. MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor acknowledged during Thursday’s meeting that the issue has created concerns about rigor in the classroom – and resulting in media coverage, including in a Bethesda Magazine cover story last year.
Potential changes under discussion include eliminating the rounding up of grades, clarifying expectations for the district’s 50% rule regarding grades for assignments and defining parameters for deadlines and late work, according to Thursday’s presentation.
Current grade regulations, how MCPS got there
Current MCPS regulations say middle and high school students should receive a “A,” considered an “outstanding level of performance,” if they score 90% to 100%; a “B” for “high level of performance” for scoring 80% to 89%; and a “C” for scoring 70% to 79%, considered an “acceptable level of performance.” The lowest grade a student can receive is an “E” for scoring 0% to 59%.
Annual grades are currently “rounded up.” For example, if a student receives an “A” in the first marking period, and a “B” in the second, the student is given an “A” for the year. Or if a student receives a “D” in one marking period and an “A” in the next, they are given a “B” for the year.
The district also has a 50% rule, which allows students to receive a score of 50% on an assignment as long as they’ve made an effort. This rule was implemented in 2008, according to Niki Hazel, who was recently appointed to serve as MCPS chief academic officer. The intention was to ensure students remained motivated to learn because some students would stop making an effort when they knew they were failing classes, Hazel told the board.
Hazel also noted the district in 2017 shifted from having final exams in high school classes to providing students with quarterly assessments to reduce the “testing burden” on students and increase instructional time. The final exams had been administered over a two-week period and students would take two-hour assessments for each course. Quarterly assessments were shorter and given more often.
Then, amid the height of COVID-19 in 2020, the district joined others across the country in implementing temporary grading guidance that relaxed some expectations for students. This included the expansion of pass/fail grades for classes and flexibility for turning in late work as the school district focused on meeting “social and emotional needs” of students when they returned to school and while learning remotely, Hazel said.
The district no longer promotes that guidance, but inconsistency and confusion around how grades are given and communicated in schools remains, Hazel said.
More recent changes include adding state-required end-of-course exams for some classes, which counted for 20% of the final semester grade for the 2023-2024 school year.
Other 2023-2024 school year changes include a nine-assignment minimum per marking period, clarified grade symbols for report cards and the return of a requirement for quarterly district assessments that count for 10% of students’ marking period grade.
Hazel said district staff visited four high schools — Richard Montgomery in Rockville, Montgomery Blair and James Hubert Blake High in Silver Spring, and Seneca Valley High in Germantown — and conducted student focus groups to gather the student perspective on grading. The students said grades often reflect effort, instead of learning and the 50% rule is applied inconsistently. Students also have confusion over due dates for assignments and are overwhelmed, often prioritizing assignments that most impact their grades, Hazel reported.
Upcoming changes
According to the presentation, the district is evaluating changing final grade calculations beginning with incoming ninth grade students. Instead of “rounding up,” the district will move toward averaging the percentages of grades for each marking period.
Board President Julie Yang and several other board members pushed back on the idea of only implementing changes to final grade calculations for the incoming ninth graders.
“Today you have stated very clearly how this is impacting our students – lowering the rigor, not helping our students make good choices – yet we want to continue to have the students who are currently ninth graders to continue this pattern for another three years,” Yang said. “Don’t underestimate our students’ ability to meet expectations and adjust to changes.”
However, Student Member of the Board Praneel Suvarna viewed the issue differently, arguing that changing grading regulations for current high school students would be “changing the rules in the middle of the game.” Suvarna said high school juniors are applying to colleges and internships, which could be impacted by shifts in grading.
“The idea that [students] have to now explain what is likely to be perceived as a drop in grades because of something that MCPS has mismanaged seems supremely unfair to me,” Survarna said.
Hazel said MCPS understood both perspectives and staff would be discussing the issue further.
“We do want to be cautious about overcorrecting to the point where we do see a dramatic change,” Hazel said, noting that staff were considering what several changes at once could mean for students.
The district will also be defining what minimal effort looks like in order for students to be eligible for the 50% rule. Hazel said the district will be providing examples so staff can understand what it looks like when a student submits work that represents a “genuine attempt to engage with the content.”
“Students who turn in just a blank sheet with their name on it, they are writing off topic, they have random answers not related to the assignment, would not earn a 50%, which is what’s happening at this time,” Hazel said.
Other changes include setting a minimum number and timeframe for reassessments, establishing a deadline for late work, which will likely be 10 days after an original due date and ensuring teachers provide students with feedback within “a set timeframe” to support their learning, the presentation said. The changes would be implemented for the 2025-2026 school year.
