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Marshall district weighs changes to grade-weighting policy after state statute interpretation
Summary
District staff told the school board a change to Minnesota Statute 124D.09 means Marshall must apply identical weighting to all postsecondary credits unless the board amends local policy; administrators outlined three options and said an update to policy 06-20 will be drafted for first reading.
Brian Jones, a district staff member, told the Marshall Public School District Board on Tuesday that a legislative change requires the district to align local practice with state statute for weighting postsecondary credits.
"The change that was made was to, state statute 124D.09," Jones said, and the statute "says that a school board must adopt an identical policy regarding weighted grade point averages for credits earned via both secondary coursework as it gives to credits earned via concurrent enrollment coursework." Jones said the change went into effect for the 2024–25 school year.
Why it matters: the change affects whether Marshall weights (adds 0.5 grade-point) certain advanced or postsecondary classes, such as Advanced Placement (AP), College in the Schools (concurrent enrollment) and PSEO courses. Jones said the district historically weighted AP courses and some concurrent-enrollment courses, and since 2017 had used a petition process to consider weighting specific postsecondary classes. The Department of Education, district legal counsel and the Minnesota School Boards Association recently advised the district that the statute requires identical weighting for concurrent/postsecondary credits, which would broaden the set of courses the district must weight.
Jones outlined three options for the board to consider: 1) keep the current local policy and apply statewide identical weighting to all concurrent-enrollment and PSEO courses (no policy change), 2) eliminate all grade weighting locally (change policy 06-20), or 3) continue weighting AP classes but stop weighting concurrent-enrollment classes (which would also remove weighting for PSEO classes). He said teachers and site leaders had discussed the options and that each option carries trade-offs for course choice, student incentive and budgetary impacts.
Jones described potential consequences: removing all weighting could depress enrollment in AP or other challenging offerings, while continuing to weight AP only could change enrollment patterns in concurrent enrollment and PSEO programs. "If we were to do option 2, we think there could be some challenges," he said. He also noted some colleges use unweighted GPAs for scholarships while others use weighted GPAs; the district currently maintains both weighted and unweighted records for transcript purposes.
Board discussion that followed included concern over the statute's unintended consequences and a suggestion to contact legislators. One board member said the 2017 petition process allowed the district to judge postsecondary courses on their merits and that the blanket statewide approach had "tied our hands." Jones said staff will draft an update to policy 06-20 for first reading at an upcoming meeting and that the executive committee would review feedback.
Ending: District officials said they will return to the board with a drafted policy amendment for consideration; they also encouraged public contact with state legislators about the statutory interpretation.
