NC Board of Education declines to vote on failing grades, attendance policy

The North Carolina State Board of Education declined to vote on language Thursday intended to make a new rule clearer: That North Carolina high school students can no longer receive an "FF" failing grade solely based on not attending enough classes.

The board had been weighing a change that would make it so that no North Carolina student could fail a course solely for not attending enough classes.

The State Board of Education has considered the change for a couple of months, after approving a similar rule last November applying to "FF" grades -- a relatively obscure, infrequently used letter grade.

The change would have meant that even an "F" grade would not be allowed for those students, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction [DPI], which has been pushing for the new approach to grading.

The State Board of Education otherwise approved changes to its high school grading and transcript policies to implement new state laws for charter schools, but the board removed the portion of the proposed changes related to failing grades and attendance because of confusion over it.

"In light of some of the questions that were raised from the field, we are removing the clarifying statement," Board Member Jill Camnitz said Thursday.

The now-delayed proposal came as student attendance remains worse than it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and as critics contend schools across the country are engaging in "grade inflation." The share of students who are "chronically absent" -- missing 10% or more of schooldays -- was one in four during the 2023-24 school year. Before the pandemic, it was one in six.

Supporters of the proposal say that students shouldn't be punished for missing class if they can get the work done. Some noted that transportation to school is a challenge for some students.

DPI first moved to make the change last November, as a part of a larger change to high school grading and transcript standards. The "FF" grade change was not among the original changes proposed earlier that fall but was presented to the State Board of Education the day before the board voted to approve those high school changes.

As a part of that vote, the board approved a change to "FF" grades that stated they can "only be used for a student who does not have a passing grade based on content and also has significant absences based on local board policy." Before that, the state had an "FF" letter grade but no defined instance to use it. DPI officials said some schools had allowed the assigning to "FF" grades to students based on attendance, but that it wasn't many. That change went into effect this school year.

Several months after the November 2024 vote, in August 2025, DPI asked the board to change its policy again to state that "a student may not fail a course based solely on attendance." During the meeting, state board members expressed confusion over what the change would mean and whether they had already functionally approved it back in November. They ultimately declined to hold a vote on the change, which had been scheduled for Aug. 7.

DPI returned with the same proposed change on Wednesday, but the board again declined to vote on it.