farmington – Class rank and how grades are valued dominated discussion at Tuesday night’s SAD 9 board meeting.

A weighted grading system has been in place there since early in the school year.

The system was designed to help offset the increased difficulty of honors and advanced placement classes at the high school by adding a sliding scale percentage to grades that affect class rank. Grade point averages and grades sent home on report cards are not altered.

As it stood, the system added 5 percent to honors classes and 8 percent to AP classes. Principal Joe Moore proposed increasing the weighting to 7 and 10 percent, respectively.

“We did discover that the 5 percent and 8 percent weighting didn’t create the point spread we wanted to create,” said Moore. “We discovered a 7 percent weight for honors and 10 percent weight for AP would get us the point spread we wanted.”

Several directors were skeptical of the revision.

“I went along with the first vote. I will not go along with this vote. It just points out the tinkering that goes with this (weighted grades),” said director Jo Josephson of Temple.

“This is not consistent statewide,” added member Joyce Morton of Farmington, citing the lack of standards for weighted grades and the disparity among school districts in Maine.

Jonathan Cohen, a Farmington resident and parent of several SAD 9 students, presented a petition signed by 250 individuals, including parents, students, and 20 teachers, asking the board to raise the percentages to 10 percent and 20 percent.

“The students on the list are intimidated by honors and AP courses,” said Cohen. “Instead of a psychology of ‘I don’t want to hurt my GPA,’ it should be a psychology of ‘I’ll give it a try,'” he continued.

Cohen’s son, Sam, president of the sophomore class at Mt. Blue, concurred. “There are a lot of students who are on the fence” about taking high-level classes, he said. He felt the board would provide those students with motivation by approving a more substantial grade-weighting system.

Directors mostly disagreed and voted 7-5 to not alter the system. They agreed, however, to revisit the idea later.

“The problem is we don’t have enough information in everybody’s hands,” said Chairman Ray Glass, conceding that the weighted-grade concept is evolving and will need to be explored.

In other business, directors reviewed new policies outlining extracurricular activity eligibility and chemical health regulations for the district.

The next meeting will begin in the Mt. Blue High School library at 7 p.m. on April 10.