A group of students told the Montgomery County Board of Education on July 10 that changes to the MCPS grading policy should not be applied retroactively to students already in upper grades.

Sahir Kataria, a rising junior at Northwest High School, said the policy initially was framed as affecting grades 6 through 9 but that it was expanded to include 10th through 12th grades with little warning. “This change feels rushed,” Kataria said. “We’re not asking to be graded easily, we’re asking to be graded fairly.” He warned that the policy could discourage students from taking challenging courses to protect GPAs and that counseling and mental‑health access is insufficient to mitigate stress.

Board member Stewart responded with a technical explanation: “It is actually not technically possible for us to operate two different grading systems in the same classroom,” she said. Stewart said the district’s current systems do not support issuing different grade calculations for individual students inside the same course or classroom.

Superintendent Taylor and other board members said they would continue the discussion. Taylor said staff are reviewing the policy’s effects and that the system will need time to study implementation impacts and supports such as counseling.

What’s next: Board members asked staff to examine options and to consider students’ and counselors’ capacity to support any changes to grading policy. No immediate reversal or formal policy amendment was adopted at the July 10 meeting.