District 214 changes how it calculates GPA

Northwest Suburban High School District 214 is changing how it calculates student grade-point averages to better align with other area schools, college admission scales and scholarship opportunities.

Starting with the graduating Class of 2018, grade-point averages will be calculated on a 4.0 scale, rather than 5.0 as it has been in the past. The District 214 school board approved the change last week, but it will not be reflected on student report cards until the summer before the 2017-2018 school year, said Dustin Seemann, director of professional learning and student services.

"After doing an assessment of the area around us and talking to scholarship providers, universities and colleges, we found that a lot of school districts had already converted to a 4.0 scale," Seeman said.

Under the current scale, an "A" is worth a 5.0 in a regular class, 5.5 in an honors class, and 6.0 in an Advanced Placement class. On the new scale, that will be reduced to a 4.0, 4.5 and 5.0, respectively.

A "B" will be worth a 3.0, "C" worth 2.0, "D" worth 1.0 and "F" will be worth 0. Honors classes will still be weighted an extra 0.5 and AP classes an extra 1.0 in the calculations.

The shift will not affect grades students have already earned, but the district's computers automatically will convert student GPAs to the new scale, Seeman said.

The district has historically used the 5.0 scale because there was a fifth letter grade possible - an "E" for effort between "D" and "F" that carried a 1.0 weight in the GPA calculation, Seeman said. The district eliminated the "E" grade several years ago, but hadn't adjusted the GPA scale to reflect the change.

"We have gotten a very overwhelmingly positive response," Seeman said of a letter about the change sent to parents on Friday.

District 214 eliminated class rank, another way to measure students against one another, a few years ago.

Most other schools in the area, including Barrington Area Unit District 220, Elgin Area School District U-46, Libertyville-Vernon Hills High School District 128, Maine Township High School District 207 and Schaumburg-Palatine High School District 211, are already on a 4.0 GPA scale.

"It makes it easier for parents to see where their student falls and they don't have to compare the 5.0 to a 4.0, which a lot of college admissions offices and scholarship applications use," Seeman said. "We wanted to not just move with the trend, but stay competitive and help our students understand how they are doing."