Northwestern Lehigh committee recommends multiplier-based weighting for advanced courses, stop posting class rank on transcripts

The Northwestern Lehigh School District grading committee recommended that the district replace its practice of adding three percentage points to honors, accelerated and AP course grades with a multiplier-based weighting system and stop reporting class rank on student transcripts.

The committee presented its findings to the district board during a public meeting. Committee lead Aileen Gaddish said the group recommended a 1.05 multiplier for honors/accelerated/dual-enrollment honors courses and a 1.10 multiplier for AP classes, and that the district should continue reporting GPA on a 100-point scale rather than converting to a 4.0 scale. "All of our AP teachers are in agreement with the higher level for AP," Gaddish said.

Why it matters: The committee said the current practice of manually adding three percentage points to marking-period and final grades effectively inflates students’ transcripted grades rather than weighting them for GPA calculations in the same way neighboring high schools do. The committee showed scenarios in which converting to multipliers would shift top students’ GPAs and class ranks — in some cases noticeably — and recommended a phased implementation to avoid retroactively changing academic records.

Key findings and recommendations

- Current practice: Teachers manually add three…