CAMARILLO : Schools to Establish Minimum Standard

The Pleasant Valley School District will set a minimum grade-point average as a requirement for students to graduate, board members have decided.

The board voted to establish a task force to determine the minimum grade-point average.

The board learned that no official minimum requirement existed after Los Primeros Structured School officials asked to change the minimum grade-point average from 1.5 to 2.0 to “further challenge the students.”

Veteran Pleasant Valley Trustee Dolores (Val) Rains said she looked through her records and could not find a policy that set any minimum grade-point average. Consequently, she said, she could not vote to raise it to 2.0.

The matter prompted a discussion on whether the district should require students to earn the same minimum grade-point average to both graduate and participate in commencement ceremonies.

Trustee Leonard Diamond, however, cautioned that by setting the grade-point average too high, the district could hurt some students who might not become interested in learning until later in life.