The Marble Falls Independent School District recently closed a perceived “loophole” in its GPA calculation methods that could have allowed certain transfer students to leap through the class ranks into top 10 percent positions. The change comes after concerns were expressed from some corners of the community about the fairness of the district’s policy.

During its June 15 meeting, the MFISD Board of Trustees voted to change its EIC local policy, which governs student academic achievement and class ranking. The change focused on eliminating a simple pass/fail system for transfer students without MFISD equivalent grades from their previous schooling, and implementing a system for assigning true numeric grade values to passing and failing results.

The adjustment is steeped deeply in high-level grade-point-average calculation formulas, weighted course values, and the technicalities of public school policy development, but, ultimately, it means that the playing field has been leveled across the board for all students, no matter their educational background. 

“We had a number of parents and students that approached high school administration, the district, and school board members, about a concern related to any student that did not come into Marble Falls High School with classes that had rank GPA weighted courses,” MFISD Superintendent Dr. Jeff Gasaway told DailyTrib. “During that time, we looked into it, took thoughtful consideration of what was being shared and how we can address that concern.”

The concerns Dr. Gasaway was referring to centered around the way MFISD valued the prior courses, or lack of them, from students transferring in from unaccredited educational backgrounds or from institutions that did not have equivalent grades for their coursework. This could include homeschooling, out-of-state transfers, or a private school education that is not accredited with the state. 

Under the previous MFISD GPA-class rank policy, a transfer student coming into Marble Falls High School from an unaccredited background would be assessed through a “credit by exam” process. Their performance on that exam would determine whether they earned a “P” for “pass” or an “F” for “fail.” While earning a P would give the student a pass in the course, it had no weighted GPA value, and did not play into their overall class rank calculation. 

The “loophole” in that system was that a transfer student could theoretically come into the district with effectively a clean GPA slate – full of Ps rather than actual numeric grades – then only take a handful of high-level courses in their junior year that would count toward their overall GPA. Their average grade could end up being much higher, as it could be derived from dividing a collection of scores from heavily-weighted advanced classes, by a smaller number.

With the new rules in place, students no longer simply receive a P for credits by exam, they receive a numeric grade attached to that exam, which now plays into their overall GPA. 

“We receive more and more students who, based on our process, we would issue a ‘P’,” explained MFISD Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Yarda Leflet. “They did not have a direct transferable grade due to lack of schooling or where their schooling had come from. When their rank was determined, there were less courses to put in their rank compared to students who have been in Marble Falls High School for four years.”

How class rank is calculated has major implications for students. Those who make it into the top 10 percent of the class have sweeping access to automatic acceptance at most Texas state colleges and universities. Some schools require more, like the University of Texas, which wants to see a student in the top 5 percent of their class. 

“If you’re fighting for one of those top 5 percent spots, your class rank GPA being completely accurate and having it reflect the totality of your academic work, is going to be really important,” Dr. Gasaway said. “For a lot of students, they want to have the ability to go to whatever college that they have earned the opportunity to go to.”

A transfer student soaring through the class ranks due to the smaller number of high-weighted courses used to determine their class rank GPA was relatively uncommon according to Dr. Gasaway, but still possible, and that justified a change.

“The school board wants to write policies that can be time tested, that can last throughout the ages, but every now and then you are going to find situations that just rise to the level that the board of trustees, with the administration, need to make adjustments to board policy,” he said. “You just hope that when you make those adjustments, that you do so in a manner that will really take you for years down the road before you have to make a new adjustment.”

Getting technical

To understand the concerns expressed by some members of the community regarding the MFISD class rank GPA calculation, you would have to understand how the district calculated weighted and unweighted grade point averages. 

At MFISD, courses are divided into three tiers: Tier I for basic courses, Tier II for honors courses, and Tier III for advanced placement courses. Depending on a course’s tier, it holds a different weighted GPA value. 

• Tier I- worth up to 6 grade points
• Tier II- worth up to 5 grade points
• Tier III- worth up to 4 grade points

The district uses a policy-approved chart to determine the grade-point value assigned to their overall score in a course. 

For example, a perfect 100 score in a course equates to a maximum grade point value. So in an advanced placement course, if a student scored 100, they would receive 6 grade points, or a student who received a score of 100 in a regular course would receive 4 grade points. 

By using this system, adding up all of a student’s grade points, then dividing them by the number of courses they took in their career, you would arrive at their weighted GPA, which would be used to determine their overall class rank.

The problem with the previous policy arose because a transfer student from an unaccredited background could come into MFISD with effectively no grade points or credits in their junior or senior year and receive all “P”s for passing without having any grade point values attached to them. Then, they could take all Tier I weighted courses, which are not available for most freshman and sophomore year classes, and attain a higher weighted GPA than is possible for a student who attended freshman and sophomore year within MFISD.

The hypothetical transfer student in the above scenario, under the previous rules, would have been able to calculate their class rank GPA using only eight courses in their junior year, which could all be advanced placement courses worth 6 grade points. A student’s junior year transcripts are often what is used for college applications. 

An MFISD student who had attended MFHS for their freshman and sophomore year, could achieve the same grade point average, because they would have had to have taken at least a handful of courses with Tier II or Tier III values. 

Now, with numeric values attached to Ps for credits by exam, this disparity will no longer be possible.

The MFISD Board of Trustees unanimously approved these changes during its Tuesday, June 15, meeting. At a glance, they are:

• Course credit by examination, which allows a student to test out of a specific course without having to take a class, will now be included in the calculation of class rank.

• Courses that are transferred into the district that are graded on a pass/fail basis will be converted to a grade of 70 if the course was passed, and a grade of 60 if failed. Students may take a test to receive a higher grade than a 70 if they passed the course, and the higher grade between the test and a 70 will be recorded as their official grade.

• Additionally, the eligibility for selecting a valedictorian and salutatorian for the class of 2029 and beyond was refined to require a student to have numerical grades for English, math, and science courses in their first four semesters of high school.

dakota@thepicayune.com