The South Butler County School District will begin the next school year with a grading system that district leaders say will give students applying for college a boost.

At a meeting this week, the school board voted unanimously to change the grading scale from 92 percent to 90 percent for an A, 82 percent to 80 percent for a B, 74 percent to 70 percent for a C and 60 percent for a D.

District Superintendent David Foley said the new grading scale would help to improve students’ grade-point averages and enable them to be more competitive for college admissions and scholarships.

Although parents and teachers were consulted and the district received support for the new system, it’s understandable how some might view the switch as making students less competitive. Questions might be raised as to whether students entering college would be adequately prepared when faced with the more rigorous demands of higher education if their school district took it easy on them.

However, South Butler’s new grading scale does not represent a dumbing down, but rather aligns it more closely to neighboring districts with similar grading scales.

Currently, Foley pointed out, a South Butler student earning a 91 percent score ends up with a B, while a student in a nearby district could earn the same percentage and obtain an A.

Similarly, if a student had the following grades — 97 percent, 98 percent, three 91 percent grades and 90 percent — on a report card, they’d have a 3.9 GPA in Mars and a 4.0 GPA in a number of school districts, including Butler, Seneca Valley and Slippery Rock. But under South Butler’s current system, they’d only have a 3.3 GPA.

Therefore, a student from another district would have an advantage over the South Butler student when seeking scholarships or applying for college.

Here’s another way of viewing it: Changing the grading scale by a few points per grade isn’t going to lead to unwarranted success for students not willing to do the work.

Students who typically make Cs or Ds aren’t going to suddenly have report cards filled with As. Under South Butler’s new system, the top students will still receive the top scores.

We think South Butler’s decision to change its grading scale is a good idea. It lines up more closely with neighboring districts and improves its students’ chances of obtaining scholarship money for — and being selected to attend — better colleges and universities.

— NCD