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VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) -- Virginia Beach City Public School held a forum on possible grading changes on Wednesday night.

Parents, teachers, employees, and community members met in small groups at Kellam High School and gave input on recommendations a grading committee has made.

School officials say the grading changes would create consistency across Virginia Beach middle schools and high schools.

The issue has created concern among some community members, as they worry students wouldn't be held accountable with the new policies.

"What we have to do is come together and try to find some common ground about what's best for children in the learning process," said Superintendent Dr. Aaron Spence on Wednesday night.

The Fair and Equitable Grading Practices Committee, made up of teachers, administrators, parents, students, school board members and community members, has come up with three grading recommendations.

Recommendation one is that academic progress would be assessed separately from a student's behavior or work habits. For example, a teacher would grade a student on how well they know the assignment and whether they turned it in on time. The student would get two separate grades.

Jennifer Mechling, a Virginia Beach high school teacher who also has children in the division, said she is already implementing some of the grading practices in her classroom. She explained she grades the quality of the assignment and has a separate grade for whether the student turned it in on time.

"I have what I call a punctuality assignment," she explained. "And it's equal to a test grade."

Mechling went on, "Throughout the nine weeks, I keep a record of how often students are turning assignments in late. And so, if they never turn anything in late that's 100 percent, which is equal to a test score."

The second recommendation would be to revise the current grading scale. Currently, everything below a 64 percent, or D, is considered failing. A new grading scale might give students more of an opportunity for a passing grade, and it would lessen the impact of a zero, according to Spence.

"For example, if you look at our current scale, it goes from zero to 100," Spence explained. And the first 60 percent of that is failure. So you learn over half the material, and be considered a failure."

Some parents and teachers said Wednesday night, they agree grading percentages could be shifted. However, they believe students need to know they can still fail if they don't do well.

"Failure is a valuable learning experience," said Mechling.

A third recommendation is to make the committee a standing committee, that would continue monitoring and reviewing the grading system.

A second forum will be held on Tuesday, March 22 at 6:30 p.m. at First Colonial High School. There is also an e-Town Hall where community members can answer questions related to the grading changes.

The committee will now take information gathered at the forums and present their final recommendations to the school board in May.