By Leonard Sparks

Published: 2:00 AM - 04/27/13

LIBERTY Liberty schoolteachers are demanding that the district's board reform a minimum-grade practice they say rewards students who do little or no work.

Tuesday's board meeting opened with Faculty Association President Tim Hamblin and several teachers bashing a de facto custom that allows students who earn a below-50 grade to still earn a 50.

The practice is used widely by districts as a way to give kids who have had a bad quarter a chance to achieve an average passing grade for the year by scoring higher in subsequent quarters.

But Hamblin and others criticized Liberty's use of minimum grading for all marking periods, calling it unfair to other students and urging the board to craft a stricter formal policy.

"We feel that there needs to be some compromise on the issue because teachers are giving students grades of 50 who are never in class," he said. "We feel that that's basically inflating grades, and teachers who try to do a professional job feel that that's kind of unethical."

School districts have varying positions on minimum grades.

Fallsburg, for example, awards a minimum 50 just for the first marking period. Monticello allows it for the first three marking periods, and its teachers have the ability to notify parents of the actual grade.

"If a child gets a zero in quarter one, the odds of ever passing the course is about zero," Liberty Superintendent William Silver said.

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Liberty teachers call minimum-grade policy unethical