San Antonio's school districts don't agree on how to calculate a student's grade point average, and the gap matters: Northside ISD scores AP courses on an eight-point scale while docking dual-credit and honors classes to five points, North East ISD uses a 1.15 multiplier for AP versus 1.08 for dual credit, and Alamo Heights ISD runs its own separate formula entirely. A new Texas rule aims to erase those differences. Separately, Alamo Heights ISD's grading controversy stemmed from inconsistencies in grading documents and communication about a district policy change.
Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1191, which requires the Texas Education Agency to develop a standardized method for computing high school GPAs so that similar courses carry similar weight, according to Texas Public Radio. The Texas Education Agency has since adopted rule §74.3001, which spells out the new requirement in state regulatory filings: school districts must use the standard method developed by the commissioner to compute students' high school GPAs, according to the Texas Secretary of State's adopted rules filing. That standard method must grant equal weight to non-career and technical education Advanced Placement courses, International Baccalaureate courses, OnRamps dual enrollment courses, and dual-credit courses, the filing states.
Before the bill, Texas school districts were free to build their own local GPA formulas because no statewide standard existed, per the same filing. That explains why San Antonio-area districts currently calculate GPAs using different policies, as the San Antonio Report notes, and why most districts in the region currently weight AP classes more heavily than dual-credit courses.
Who the New Rules Will Affect
The change won't hit current high schoolers. The new GPA rules would affect students enrolled in seventh grade by the 2027-28 school year, the station's report indicates. The adopted rule also addresses what happens if a student's graduation timeline shifts: a student's GPA will be calculated using the same GPA policy and computation method as the graduating class with which that student actually graduates, per the Texas Secretary of State filing.
Northside ISD is expected to move first locally. This school year, Jerry Woods, per the same account, plans to recommend a policy change to Northside's board that would standardize how advanced courses are weighed, according to the station's reporting. Woods said stacked courses — ones that combine AP and dual-credit coursework — can give students more opportunities, the outlet reports. Northside and North East ISD both offer courses that combine AP and dual credit, and at Northside, a dual-credit course stacked with an AP course automatically receives the district's higher eight-point weighting, according to the Northside ISD Dual Credit Handbook.
Northside's dual-credit program runs through partnerships with Alamo Colleges, the handbook states, and the district has around 10,500 dual-enrollment students along with more than 20,000 AP tests administered last year. Students in the district can take up to 14 dual-credit courses and potentially graduate with up to 42 hours of college credit, and the handbook notes those courses carry no cost to students under the district's agreement with Alamo Colleges.
North East ISD, meanwhile, is still working through its own options. District officials are still considering how to change the GPA policy, Celeste Lafuente, an employee in the district's Department of Strategic School Improvement who oversees learning support services, told the outlet. North East currently assigns AP courses a 1.15 multiplier against 1.08 for dual credit, and the district lowered its GPA multiplier several years ago to align more closely with other Texas districts. North East has also expanded dual-credit offerings through partnerships with local community colleges that provide teachers.
Alamo Heights Reverses Course After Confusion
Alamo Heights ISD's recent experience shows how messy mid-year grading changes can get. The district's GPA policy applies to the 2028 graduation cohort and beyond, assigning a 1.13 multiplier to AP courses, 1.1 to most dual-credit and advanced academic classes, and a flat 1.0 to on-level courses — weighted scores are calculated by multiplying course points by semester averages and then averaging the results, per Texas Public Radio's reporting.
In April 2024, the Alamo Heights school board voted to raise the multiplier for dual-credit U.S. History and dual-credit psychology up to the same level as AP courses. But on October 1, after students had already selected their semester courses, the board reversed course and took both classes back down to a 1.1 multiplier. Alamo Heights spokesperson Julie Matonis said the district identified inconsistencies in how the April change had been reflected in published grading documents, and that follow-up communication hadn't reached all the families it needed to reach.
The fallout followed quickly. On October 2, Alamo Heights High School principal Cory Smith apologized to families and gave affected students until October 13 to request course changes. Only four students submitted course-change requests during that window, and at least one parent filed a grievance over the policy changes, according to the outlet's reporting. Alamo Heights also runs an early college program with St. Philip's College at its only high school, and students there often enroll in AP courses alongside OnRamps, the dual-enrollment program run by the University of Texas at Austin. The district additionally offers extra scholarships to help cover AP exam costs, on top of reduced AP exam fees that the College Board and the state already provide to economically disadvantaged students.
Why the Weighting Fight Matters
The stakes go beyond report cards. Texas public universities automatically accept the top 10 percent of most high school graduating classes based on class rank, which is built directly from GPA — meaning a course's point value can shape whether a student lands inside or outside that threshold. Texas students overall earned roughly 2.5 million college credit hours in the 2023-24 school year, a 29 percent jump from 2018-19, according to Houston Landing. Dual-credit courses in English, U.S. history and U.S. government were the most popular route to those credits, the outlet reports, while AP exams in English, U.S. History and Biology alone accounted for tens of thousands of additional credit hours statewide.
Not every advanced course falls under the new statewide rule. Senate Bill 1191 allows districts to continue setting their own weights for honors courses, and the law treats career and technical education dual-credit courses differently from standard dual-credit classes, according to the adopted rule's filing. Separately, school officials have noted that students who take on advanced coursework with added expectations they aren't prepared to meet can end up putting their own grades at risk.
