BHPSNJ District Acknowledges GPA Concerns, Leaves Students Vulnerable to College Recalculation
Closed Door Presentation obtained through OPRA Confirms GPA Concerns — But Offers No Solution
For months, parents in Berkeley Heights have raised concerns that Governor Livingston High School’s GPA system might be quietly putting students at a disadvantage when applying to college. The debate centers on how colleges recalculate GPAs, and whether the way Berkeley Heights weights and scales grades leaves its students more exposed to GPA drops than peers in neighboring districts. NJ21st first reported on these concerns back in February, highlighting both parent complaints and data that suggested this may be happening.
On May 2nd, the district formally addressed the issue in a presentation to the Board’s Curriculum Committee. While the presentation confirmed many of the mechanics parents have raised concerns about, it offered no solution. Instead, the district acknowledged how recalculation works while downplaying any suggestion that Berkeley Heights students are being uniquely affected.
NJ21st obtained this presentation through an OPRA request.
It’s likely no coincidence this presentation took place behind closed doors in committee, rather than at a full public meeting.
The presentation has a lot of words and ends with the claim that parental concerns are inaccurate - which is interesting given that the initial response to parents was an inaccurate description of the scale itself from the Superintendent, likely based on feedback from the very people who provided this presentation.
It's a common way for the District to spread misinformation in closed door echo chambers.
For example we are aware that one principal labeled our concerns about his school’s poor performance in math and science proficiency as inaccurate and blamed NJ21st for students not attending the school and choosing other options. Instead of taking responsibility, they decided to play the blame game behind closed doors hoping that parents who attended would pick up their mantle. Fortunately, that didn’t work and that same individual was forced to acknowledge the declines publicly and articulate a plan to address them.
Back to the GPA issue.
In its presentation the district actually confirmed that colleges routinely recalculate high school GPAs using their own formulas. The presentation included statements from admissions officers at schools like the University of New Hampshire, UC Berkeley, Harvard, and Yale, all confirming that recalculation is standard practice across the country. Colleges use these recalculations to create a consistent scale across applicants from different high schools. In short, the district fully acknowledged that recalculation happens, that weighting is often removed, and that GPAs can end up lower after external review.
The district also presented comparisons to neighboring districts — Millburn, Chatham, Westfield, New Providence, Summit, Glen Ridge — confirming what parents had already observed: different schools use different GPA scales, and these differences carry consequences once recalculation happens.
But while the district acknowledged that recalculation lowers GPAs, it suggested that this isn’t unique to Berkeley Heights, essentially saying: recalculation happens to everyone, so no unique harm is being done to GLHS students.
That framing ignores the specific concern raised by parents, and directly addressed in NJ21st’s analysis. After reviewing grading scales from multiple districts, one parent applied the same recalculation formulas that colleges use to compare the impact across schools. The results showed that Berkeley Heights students may, in fact, lose more ground when recalculation happens — not because of unfair practices by colleges, but because of how the district structures its GPA scale.
While much of the debate has focused on how weighting affects GPA, several parents have emphasized that there’s a deeper problem built into the district’s grading scale itself.
Even before weighting is applied, Governor Livingston’s base grading system assigns an A+ a value of 4.5 and an A a value of 4.0. By contrast, many districts — and most national college admissions systems — use a true 4.0 unweighted scale where an A+ and an A both receive a 4.0.
This creates a different kind of risk when colleges or scholarship systems normalize transcripts. When recalculating a 4.5 scale into a 4.0 system, some colleges simply apply a proportional conversion.
Under that formula, a student with a perfect A average at Governor Livingston could see their GPA recalculated as low as 3.56 — even though their grades match the performance of students from other schools who retain a full 4.0. This proportional scaling issue, entirely independent of weighting, exposes even top-performing students to unnecessary penalties when their transcripts are evaluated outside the district.
One of the most pointed moments in the district’s presentation involved a February 3rd email from a GLHS parent, who argued that recalculation cost their child college admissions offers and scholarships. The district labeled the parent’s claims “layered with inaccuracies” but provided no evidence or data to explain that dismissal. While quick to dispute the parent’s experience, the district offered no transparency into how they evaluated or reached that conclusion.
Parents and community members have also proposed several solutions to address the issue including simply changing the scale to a 4 point scale. The district’s presentation did not engage with any of the recommendations. Instead, it repeatedly emphasized that recalculation is universal — sidestepping whether Berkeley Heights’ own policies create greater vulnerability for its students.
The district’s own presentation confirms what many parents have suspected: GPA recalculation is real and GPA scale differences carry real implications. Even if we cannot control all of the ways GPA is recalculated by colleges, we can remove the penalty our students currently receive from colleges that use proportional conversion.
But rather than confront whether its own grading structure leaves Berkeley Heights students more exposed during college admissions, the district has chosen to dismiss complaints while offering no data, no review, and no reforms.
Even if recalculation happens everywhere, the question remains: why is Berkeley Heights, yet again, sticking its head in the sand- unwilling to examine whether its own system is putting its students at a disadvantage?