Mountain View High School students hoping to do the minimum work without failing their English classes will have to work a little bit harder this year.

The high schools language arts department has eliminated D grades for all freshmen, sophomores and juniors; in order to avoid failing, a student must earn a 70 percent or higher. Its an attempt to help students reach their full potential, and it may just work: Last year, several teachers piloted the grading policy and found that fewer students earned Fs than in previous years.

I think its our responsibility as teachers to prepare these students for the real world, said Alana Dusan, a teacher at the school who piloted the grading system last year. Ive explained to the class, Look at the economy. Realistically, if you go out and give a C effort at a job, theres a whole line of people your employer is more likely to want to hire rather than employ you with your C effort.

Joel Clements, another teacher in the language arts department, said his students have stepped up to the challenge.

So few people are a D student. Most students are C students who dont want to put in the work to get a C, Clements said. Weve set up safeguards to keep students working and to not have to play catch-up.

The pilot program started last year, when the department was spending staff development days talking about ways to help students succeed.

By doing away with Ds, students had to earn at least a 70 percent in order to pass; 69 percent and below was considered a failing grade.

The results were surprising, Dusan said.

Teachers were concerned more students would fail. Instead, fewer students than before failed the pilot classes.

What we were thinking at the time was that students were failing to reach their potential due to a lack of intrinsic motivation, Dusan said. With the No D policy, those students who didnt have that motivation would then attempt to give a little bit more effort to bump up to a C.

After seeing positive results last year, the department decided to spread it to all language arts classes with freshmen, sophomores and juniors.

The goal, Dusan said, is to hold students accountable for their grades. They can look at their grades every day online to see if theyre failing, as can parents.

Even a student who might be struggling with the concepts in class, as long as theyre there every day, turning in their homework and doing their assignments, they should be able to get a C in the class, she said. Its students who are not coming, who are constantly late or have plenty of missing assignments. Those are the students who had been comfortable in this stagnant area and just floated by.

Similar tactics

Other schools around the state and country are trying out life without Ds, and a few area schools are doing similar work. At Redmond High School, freshmen cannot get Fs or zeroes on assignments; if they fail to turn in an assignment, they must complete it at another time. La Pine High School Principal Jay Mathisen said students who receive Ds dont move on to the next course level without proving they understand the course work. But according to Communications Director Julianne Repman, Mountain Views language arts department is the only one she knows of in Bend-La Pine Schools with a department- wide policy.

At the start of the school year, teachers sent home letters explaining the grade change. Students had to return the letter to teachers, signed by a parent.

Very few people have thought that its not fair, that its not a good idea, said Clements, who also piloted the program last year. Of course, there will be bigger issues as it goes along. Like with athletes. With a D, they can be in sports; with an F, they cannot.

So far, students have accepted the idea.

We were surprised by how much it made sense to (students), he said. It wasnt much of an issue. It just sort of became the new way.

In fact, Dusan found that some of those students traditionally on the edge of failing put in enough effort to earn a B.

They were agreeing with me. Yeah, sometimes we do get comfortable remaining stagnate, we put in the minimal effort and get comfortable with a D, she said. By eliminating the D, its making them work a little harder.

The department decided not to include seniors in the new grading policy for a couple of reasons, Clements said.

With seniors, theres so much at stake. If you fail earlier on, you can redo it. But at the senior level, thats kind of a different playing field, he said. Earlier on, theyre sort of still in our care, and we can still get them to progress.

Dusan believes the No D policy could be successful in every class, while Clements said hes not sure. He just knows it works best for his students.

Kathy Ridling, who has a junior at Mountain View, thinks if its going to be a policy in one class, it should be adopted across the curriculum.

If the theory is that it will force kids to rise to the occasion and it will help kids become better students, so to speak, then we should challenge them to rise to the occasion in all subjects, Rid- ling wrote in an e-mail. Why limit it to one?

Ridling believes that some students may thrive realizing they have to do more in order to pass, but some still wont be motivated. She also said she hopes there will be a safety net that keeps kids from falling behind in the first place.

Clements said teachers will hold mandatory study halls for kids who are on the edge and will require teacher meetings with them as well.

But he believes it helps to hold students to a higher level.

Students know what a D means, he said. They know that it means youve gotten by. You havent progressed, but youve gotten by.