Grade Floors and No-Zero Rules: What the Largest US School Districts Put in Writing (2026)
A grade floor is a rule that sets the lowest score a teacher can enter, usually 50 out of 100. We are reading the grading rules of the 25 largest US school districts, one official document at a time. So far we have 22. Eight of them put a 50 floor in writing. Three sit in Texas, where state law bans it, and Memphis-Shelby rules floors out on its own. The other ten have no district-wide floor.
Quick answer: there is no national rule. Texas (since 2009) and South Carolina (since 1 July 2026) ban district-wide grade floors by law. Elsewhere each district decides. The districts we read that have a floor all set it at 50. Most of them still allow a zero in some cases, such as work that was never handed in.
Zero vs 50 calculator
Type a student's scores. You get the average as it stands, and the average if every score under the floor were lifted to the floor.
Every score counts the same here. If your gradebook uses weighted categories, use the weighted grade calculator.
What the floor changes
63.8% average as entered (4 scores)
76.3% average with a floor of 50
The floor lifts 1 score and moves the average up by 12.5 points.
To get back to 70% the student needs 1 more perfect score as entered, and none with the floor.
Which states ban grade floors?
Two, as far as we could find. Texas did it in 2009. South Carolina followed in 2026, and its law has teeth: a district that keeps a floor loses part of its state money.
| State | In force since | What the law says | Law |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 19 June 2009 | A district grading policy cannot make a teacher give a minimum grade on an assignment regardless of the quality of the work. The same section says a grade must reflect how well the student has mastered the assignment, and that a district may let students redo work they failed. | Education Code, section 28.0216 (S.B. 2033) |
| South Carolina | 1 July 2026 | No district or school may use a grading system that makes a teacher give a grade or score higher than the student earned on required assignments. A district that breaks the rule loses 10% of its State Aid to Classrooms money. | Act 204 of 2026 (H. 5073), now S.C. Code section 59-29-250 |
South Carolina's education department wrote to districts on 14 July 2026 to explain the new law. Its memo says the ban covers single assignments and whole grading terms. It also says a teacher cannot apply a floor on their own, and gives the example of entering a 50 instead of a 0 for missing work.
District by district
The districts are listed by size. Every row comes from the district's own regulation, handbook or policy guide, or from the state law that binds it. The rule is in our words. The link takes you to the document.
| Size rank | District | Floor | What the rule says | Document we read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York City (NY) | None citywide | No citywide floor. Each high school writes its own grading policy and may set a minimum failing mark. On the city's numeric scale, course marks run from 10 to 100 and 65 passes. | High School Academic Policy Guide (updated 24 August 2026), pages 85 to 87 and 101 |
| 2 | Los Angeles Unified (CA) | None district-wide | No district minimum. Secondary marks are the letters A, B, C, D and Fail, and the bulletin ties them to no percent scale. Each teacher sets the mark from the district's Criteria for Marks. Zeros and lowest scores do not come up anywhere in it. | Bulletin BUL-1353.1, Marking Practices and Procedures in Secondary Schools (23 December 2005), copy on an LAUSD high school site |
| 3 | Chicago (IL) | None district-wide | No district minimum. The grading guidelines, written by a joint district and teachers union task force, never mention zeros or a lowest score. Teachers decide the number, type and weight of assignments. | Professional Grading Standards and Grading Practices Guidelines (15 August 2017) |
| 4 | Miami-Dade County (FL) | None district-wide | No floor in the plan. An F covers 0 to 59%. Scores within a nine-week period are averaged, and a middle or high school course grade is the average of the letter grades from each period. | Student Progression Plan 2025-2026 (Board Policy 5410), pages 42 to 44 |
| 5 | Clark County (NV) | 50 | Floor of 50 built into the scale: for grades 1 to 12 an F runs from 50 to 59. Missing work is treated separately. It counts as 50 in elementary school and as 0 in middle and high school until the student turns it in. | Regulation 5121 (revised 8 July 2021) Grading Reform Initiative page |
| 7 | Hillsborough County (FL) | None district-wide | No floor in the progression plan. It uses the Florida scale, where an F runs from 0 to 59%, and it is silent on zeros and lowest scores. | Student Progression Plan (district web page) |
| 8 | Orange County (FL) | 50 | The floor sits on posted grades, not on single assignments. A teacher may score an assignment anywhere from 0 to 110%, but a report card, semester or final grade is never posted below 50%. | 2026-27 Student Progression Plan Handbook, PDF page 8 |
| 9 | Houston ISD (TX) | Not allowed (state law) | Not allowed. Texas law says a district grading policy cannot require a minimum grade. | Texas Education Code, section 28.0216 |
| 10 | Palm Beach County (FL) | None district-wide | No floor anywhere in the 169-page plan. Middle and high school grades must follow the scale in Florida law, and the plan lists an F simply as below 60. | K-12 Student Progression Plan 2026-2027, pages 155 and 156 |
| 12 | Fairfax County (VA) | 50 | Middle and high school: 50 is the lowest score for work a student made a reasonable attempt at. A zero is allowed for work that was not attempted. A quarter grade under 50% is raised to 50%. | Middle and High School Grading and Reporting Handbook: Grading Assignments and Assessments |
| 13 | Hawaii (HI) | None statewide | One district covers the whole state. Board policy asks only that grades be valid and reliable. It sets no scale and no lowest score, and leaves the detail to department guidelines. | Board of Education Policy 102-12, Reporting Student Progress and Achievement (amended 21 June 2016) |
| 14 | Wake County (NC) | None district-wide | No district number. Every principal has to set a school grading plan, and teacher teams choose the penalty for missed work with the principal's approval. The regulation does rule out harsh practices that leave a student unable to recover from one missed homework or one low test grade. | Regulation 3400-R&P, Evaluation of Student Progress (revised 16 July 2024) |
| 15 | Montgomery County (MD) | 50 | 50% is the lowest grade when the work shows progress toward the standard. A zero is allowed if the student does no work, does not attempt the basic requirements, or cheats. No floor is set for report card grades. | Regulation IKA-RA, Grading and Reporting, section III.E.9 (revised 6 June 2025, in force 26 August 2025) |
| 16 | Dallas ISD (TX) | Not allowed (state law) | Not allowed. Texas law says a district grading policy cannot require a minimum grade. | Texas Education Code, section 28.0216 |
| 17 | Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) | 50 | 50% is the lowest grade for an assignment that meets the task's minimum requirements, and a grade still under 50 is raised by the end of the quarter. Work that was never handed in stays a zero. High school midterm and final exams are left out of the rule. | 2026-2027 Grading Plan (full text linked from this district page) |
| 18 | Duval County (FL) | None district-wide | No minimum grade in the plan. An F covers 0 to 59. Work missed during an absence goes in as a zero, and the make-up grade replaces it later. | Student Progression Plan 2025-2026, General Appendix |
| 19 | Prince George's County (MD) | 50 | High school: 50% is the minimum for an assignment the student completed with a good-faith effort. A student who hands in nothing gets a zero. | Administrative Procedure 5121.3, Grading and Reporting for High Schools (in force 26 August 2026) |
| 20 | Philadelphia (PA) | 50 | The scale itself stops at 50. On the district's chart of marks an F runs from 50 to 59, and an Incomplete that is not fixed before the next term's grading deadline becomes a 50. | Marking Guidelines, Grades 9 to 12 (2020-2021, revised 8 October 2020) Amended Marking Guidelines, Grades 4 to 8 (2024-2025) |
| 21 | Cypress-Fairbanks ISD (TX) | Not allowed (state law) | Not allowed. Texas law says a district grading policy cannot require a minimum grade. | Texas Education Code, section 28.0216 |
| 22 | Baltimore County (MD) | 50 | On major assignments a score under 50% goes into the gradebook as 50%, and the teacher notes the real score in a comment. Work the student never tried gets a Missing code, which counts as 0%. Minor assignments are recorded as earned. The failing grade, E, is listed as 50 to 59. | Grading and Reporting Expectations for Parents and Guardians (updated 30 September 2026) Grading and Reporting Procedures Manual (updated September 2026), page 21 |
| 23 | Cobb County (GA) | None district-wide | No floor in the rule. In middle and high school an F is any average below 70. The only fixed low number is for a high school student who drops a course after it has started: the course goes on the record as a 10. | Administrative Rule IHA-R, Grading Systems (revised 16 January 2025) |
| 24 | Memphis-Shelby County (TN) | Not allowed (district) | Ruled out by the district itself. Its grading FAQ says the district does not have or authorize grade floors and that a district-wide stop on them, set in 2017, is still in force. Students get retakes and grade repair instead, and a repaired grade tops out at 70. | Grading Protocols FAQ, 10-Point Grading Scale (2022), questions 6 and 22 |
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What stands out so far
- Every floor we found is 50. Not 40, not 55.
- Most floors still leave room for a zero. Fairfax, Montgomery, Prince George's, Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Baltimore County all keep the zero for work the student did not try or never handed in. Clark County counts missing work as zero in middle and high school until it is turned in.
- The floor does not sit in the same place everywhere. Baltimore County puts it on major assignments only. Orange County in Florida puts it on report card, semester and final grades and leaves single assignments alone. Fairfax has it on assignments and on quarter grades. In Clark County and Philadelphia the scale itself stops at 50.
- Florida is split. Of the five big Florida districts we have read, only Orange has a floor. Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Palm Beach and Duval write no minimum into their plans.
- New York City has no citywide floor, but its numeric scale stops at 10, not 0, and each school may set its own minimum failing mark.
- Los Angeles has no numbers at all. Its secondary bulletin uses letter marks with no percent scale, and each teacher decides the mark.
- The three Texas districts cannot have one at all. Texas has had that law since 2009.
- Memphis-Shelby rules floors out without a state law. Its grading FAQ says the district does not allow them and has had a district-wide stop on them since 2017.
How we checked
The list of districts comes from the National Center for Education Statistics (Digest of Education Statistics, table 215.30), which ranks districts by fall 2021 enrollment. For each district we opened its own regulation, handbook or policy guide and read the grading section. No row is based on a news report.
Texas rows rest on the state law, because it applies to every district in the state. Where a row says there is no district-wide floor, it means we found no minimum grade in the document named in that row. A single school in that district may still use one.
The first nine rows were read on 11 November 2026 and the other thirteen on 12 November 2026. Districts change these rules often, so open the linked document before you quote a row. Still on our reading list: Broward, Gwinnett County and Polk. We could not open a current grading document for Broward or Gwinnett. Polk's plan sets no floor but hands grading practice to a separate handbook, and that link was dead when we tried it.
Three rows need a note. The Los Angeles bulletin library would not open for us, so we read the copy on the site of one of the district's high schools, Maywood Academy. That bulletin dates from 2005, and a district bulletin from 2022 (BUL-6779.5, on independent study) still tells teachers to follow it. For Miami-Dade we read pages 42 to 44 of the 2025-2026 plan in the copy kept on a Miami-Dade school site, and we link to the district's own file of the same plan. For Philadelphia, the newest high school guidelines we could open are from 2020-2021. The 2024-2025 guidelines for grades 4 to 8 show the same scale, and both are linked in the row.
Found a mistake, or a newer document? Tell us and we'll fix the row.
Frequently asked questions
What is a grade floor?
A grade floor is the lowest score a teacher is allowed to record. With a floor of 50, a paper that earned 30 goes into the gradebook as 50. In most of the documents we read, the floor applies to assignments. Fairfax County adds a floor on quarter grades, and Orange County in Florida puts it only on report card and final grades.
Is a grade floor the same as a no-zero policy?
People use both names for the same idea. In the district documents we read, the rule is written as a minimum score of 50, not as a ban on zeros. Most of them still allow a zero in some cases, for example when a student never hands the work in.
Which states ban grade floors?
Texas and South Carolina. Texas has barred districts from requiring minimum grades since 19 June 2009 (Education Code 28.0216). South Carolina's ban, Act 204 of 2026, took effect on 1 July 2026 and can cost a district 10% of its State Aid to Classrooms money. We found no other state law.
Why is the floor usually 50?
On a 100-point scale with 60 as the passing mark, an F covers 60 points and every other letter covers about 10. A floor of 50 makes the F range the same size as the others. Clark County gives this reason on its own grading page.
How much does one zero change an average?
It depends on how many scores there are. Take four scores that count the same: 0, 80, 85 and 90. They average 63.8%. Replace the zero with 50 and the average is 76.3%. Put your own numbers in the calculator above.
Related tools
- Grading scales by school district: the A to F cutoffs the largest districts use.
- Grading scale guide: which percent earns which letter.
- Weighted grade calculator: for gradebooks with categories.
- Final grade calculator: what you need on the final.