AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ Five Houston-area school districts have filed suit against the state education commissioner over his interpretation of a new law prohibiting minimum grading policies.
Commissioner Robert Scott told districts last month that the law applied to grades on assignments as well as six-week or nine-week grading periods.
But the Fort Bend, Aldine, Klein, Alief, Anahuac and Clear Creek schools assert that the law only specifically applies to assignments and shouldn’t be applied to grading periods or semesters. The lawsuit filed in Travis County district court in Austin Wednesday seeks to have the minimum-grade ban only apply to single assignments.
In the lawsuit, the schools argue that minimum grades, for example, of 50 for one grading period allows students a chance to improve and eventually earn course credit. Otherwise, they argue, students failing a grading period would be more inclined to drop out.