District May Require C Average : Education: Oxnard officials hope action would improve marginal students’ academic performance.

Hoping to boost the performance of marginal students, the Oxnard Union High School District is considering the unusual step of requiring that youths maintain at least a C average to graduate from high school.

The district would be the first in Ventura County to set a minimum grade-point average for graduation, although Moorpark officials also are considering the idea.

Most California high schools demand only that students earn a certain number of credits, with a D grade sufficient to pass a course.

But Oxnard school officials said that too many students are squeaking by, working just hard enough to get passing grades in the minimum number of classes.

“We want to do something that will motivate them,” Assistant Supt. Gary Davis said.

Although some county school officials argue that a minimum grade-point average could lead discouraged youths to drop out, Oxnard administrators said the proposed requirement may be the best way to reach students whose only goal is to graduate.

Last year, 256 of the district’s roughly 3,500 seniors had grade-point averages of less than C.

Oxnard Union High School District students already need at least a C, or 2.0, average to play football, become cheerleaders or participate in other extracurricular activities.

And Supt. Bill Studt said it makes sense for graduation requirements to be as high as those for playing ball.

If the district decides to go ahead with the proposal, Studt said, the new graduation standard could take effect as early as next fall for the incoming freshman class.

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The Oxnard school board will discuss the issue Wednesday. In Moorpark, high school officials have been talking about such a proposal among themselves but have yet to take it to the school board.

And the idea appears to be gaining popularity around the state.

A Mission Viejo school district in Orange County five years ago began to require that its graduates have at least a C-, or 1.75, grade-point average.

This year, at least two other districts have followed suit: the tiny Exeter district near Bakersfield and the huge San Diego school district will require that future graduates earn at least a C average.

But the trend has its detractors. Patricia Shepherd, a veteran English and drama teacher at Channel Islands High School in Oxnard, said grades frequently fail to reflect what a student does or does not know.

“We can have kids that graduate with A’s and Bs, and their spelling and sentence structure is atrocious,” Shepherd said.

The problem, she said, is that teachers’ grading policies vary widely. One teacher’s A is another instructor’s C. She said she would only support a minimum grade-point average requirement if the district also set higher classroom standards.

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Some school officials also worry that a minimum grade-point average could lead students with poor grades to become discouraged with their prospects for graduating and to drop out.

But officials at Mission Viejo’s Saddleback Valley Unified School District said their dropout rate has declined since they began to require a minimum C- average.

And student performance has improved at the south Orange County district, said Saddleback administrator Toni McKown.

Since 1989, only one or two students have been denied a diploma because they had less than the minimum grade-point average.

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About 1,500 students graduate from the district each year.

More students are attending summer school to make up classes and pull up their grades, McKown said.

In Oxnard, Assistant Supt. Davis said the high school district offers abundant support to students who struggle academically, from counseling to special-education classes.

Any students willing to work hard enough to earn a C average will get the help they need to achieve it, he said.

And at least some students like the idea.

Channel Islands High School junior Martin Soto, a student representative to the school board, said that requiring young people to earn better than a D average will help prepare them for the workplace.

“That’s what employers want,” Martin said. “Employers want at least average.”