A 10-point grading scale offers many advantages to students. • College admissions are translated from grades and a 10-point scale would favorably impact students • Motivates students to attempt college prep, AP and honors classes • Greater eligibility for academic scholarships, honors programs, and honors/scholars housing that are based on GPA • Positive effects on student self esteem • Align with the grading scale used by most colleges and universities • Students with a higher GPA can earn saving incentives (e.g. auto insurance and other “good student” discounts) When evaluating students for admission, many colleges look at GPA on a four-point scale. If your school reports it in some other scale, then it is just translated to a four-point scale. So your GPA then depends on how many A’s, B’s, pluses, minuses, etc. you receive and how those correspond to a university’s four point scale. Your GPA would only change if the class grading scale changes the number of A’s or B’s you get. The majority of higher education facilities use a 10-point grading scale. Changing our grading scale to a 10-point scale would create a smoother transition for our students. Admission-based scholarships are awards in recognition of the academic achievements of graduating high school seniors. A look at grading scales across the region shows that some students can earn A's with a grade of 90, while others need to hit 92, 93 or 94 to claim the top grade. The grading differences may not matter within the school walls, but the points add up when students are earning scholarship money. Our current students are able to reap the full benefits of this change to our grading scales. However, the recent graduates from the past two years have unfairly been caught in the cross hairs of this delicate situation. The recent graduating classes have been graded on both the 7-point grading scale and the 10- point grading scale. Issue: Colleges and University use a 10 point grading scale. They calculate GPA on a 4 point scale, strictly averaging the number of A's and B's a student received. Example if student A received a 92 ( B, grade on the 7 point scale) and another student B received a 90 ( A, grade on the 10 point scale), student B's GPA would average higher than that of student A. Resulting in obtaining the scholarship, higher scholarship value, and/or admission into college. These students deserve to have their past grades recalculated to reflect the current grading scale; they were unfairly caught in the midst of this decision. The decision that our school board made in effort to help these students achieve collegiate success, but failed to bring it full circle to benefit the students fully. To bring it home JPS states on all official documents that they are on a 10 point grading scale, this includes all records and correspondence sent to colleges on behalf of the students. Students were able to obtain college scholarships under the notion of academic eligibility due to the 10 point grading scale. Students have started classes at their perspective colleges and universities, only to lose their academic scholarship status upon receipt of the official transcript from the high school listing two (not one) grading scales. When recalculated by the colleges resulted in a significant drop in the students GPA and potential loss of scholarship.

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