Client Alert
August 27, 2008

Public Schools Face Mandatory New GPA Calculation Method

In an August 26, 2008 opinion,* Attorney General Greg Abbott verified that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board ("THECB") must establish a uniform method of calculating high school students' grade point average and rank in class for purposes of admission to Texas "general academic teaching institutions" that are subject to the "top ten percent law." And even though Tex. Educ. Code § 51.807 indicates that this method is supposed to be used for admissions in Fall 2009, the Attorney General explained the general presumption that statutes are to be implemented prospectively; thus, the THECB not only may, but essentially must, provide some kind of transition period for university applicants.**

The Landscape for the Opinion

As the AG explains it, the law was a response to the effects of the "top ten percent law." The Commissioner of Education was given the authority in 2005 (Tex. Educ. Code § 28.0252) to adopt rules for a standardized GPA calculation that all school districts would be required to use for class ranking; however both commissioners since that enactment have chosen not to develop or adopt such rules. In the 2007 session, the legislature heard stories about the vagaries of local ranking policies and the effects on students, their college hopes, and college admissions. In response, it directed the THECB to adopt rules and amended the Commissioner's authority to make clear that, to the extent of any conflict, the THECB trumps for purposes of college admission. That landscape was the background to this opinion.

Mandatory Use of the THECB Standard Calculation

What is clear now is that, regardless of whether the Commissioner of Education ever adopts rules for calculating GPA, all Texas school districts are "required . . . to use the standard method for admissions established by the THECB."*** While colleges will continue to set their GPA standards for admissions, the GPAs students submit with their applications and those finally reported to colleges by high schools via the official final transcript showing GPA and class rank must be those calculated using the THECB's method. And those class ranks will determine top 10 percent or 25 percent of a class. Nevertheless, until the Commissioner develops a uniform method applied to all districts, individual school districts may continue to use their local class rank and GPA calculations for their own purposes unrelated to college admission, such as valedictorian/salutatorian, Honor Graduates, and so on. How school districts would deal with the possibility of two class rank calculations for different purposes is simply part of "any additional questions or complexities that may be raised by a specific rule once adopted or implemented" that the Attorney General chooses not to address.

Effect of the New Rules on Soon-To-Be Graduates

This year's senior classes, whose students have operated for four years under local district grade point plans, could have faced the prospect of a new, untried GPA calculation method applied to their grades as they apply to college for Fall 2009 admission. To that end, General Abbott verified that the THECB may have a transition period so that the new GPA rules are not applied retroactively against students who could not know at the time they were making course selections what the effect would be on rank for college admission.

Since the THECB has not completed its new GPA standard yet, watch for forthcoming information regarding the calculation methods and implementation dates for future graduating classes.

Some schools may welcome the chance to get out of the class rank business; some may not. School lawyers, however, may take some comfort in the fact that the Coordinating Board rules will be adopted under Title 3 of the Texas Education Code and, thus, are not "school laws of the state" over which the Commissioner could exercise jurisdiction under Tex. Educ. Code § 7.057.
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* Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. GA-655 (2008). http://www.oag.state.tx.us/opinions/opinions/50abbott/rq/2008/pdf/RQ0716GA.pdf
** Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 28.0252(a), § 51.807 (Vernon Supp. 2008).
*** GA-655 at p. 4

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