Eleven Texas school districts will ask an Austin judge today if they can keep cutting a break to students who badly fail courses despite a new law mandating truthful grading.
The districts most are in the Houston area are suing state Education Commissioner Robert Scott over his interpretation of the bill which he says requires schools to give students accurate grades on their report cards. The districts maintain they can keep their policies that set minimum failing grades typically a 50 even if students deserved lower.
In their lawsuit the districts argue that the statute which took effect this school year applies only to class assignments not to semester or six- or nine-week grades on report cards.
The law does not mention report card grades but the bills author Sen. Jane Nelson R-Flower Mound has said she intended it to cover all types of grades.
The Fort Bend Aldine Klein Alief Anahuac and Clear Creek school districts filed the lawsuit in November with Humble Deer Park Eanes Dickinson and Livingston joining later. At todays hearing they are seeking a temporary injunction to keep Scott from voiding their minimum grading policies.
Scott who is being represented by the Texas Attorney Generals office is asking civil state District Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal to dismiss the lawsuit arguing in part that he doesnt have the power to enforce the grading law and that theres not a specific students case in dispute.
