Plenty of SHS students worry about A-minus grades hurting their grade point averages, but for the Class of 2020, this kind of worrying about will no longer be an issue. Starting this fall, the incoming freshman class will be the first to experience a major change in the school’s GPA scale.

After years of the current grading system, in which plusses and minuses affect a student’s GPA, the administration has decided to eliminate the plusses and minuses. The change helps students because it is more common for them to earn A-minus grades than A plusses and adds to students’ academic stress, according to assistant principal Brian Safine.

Through this system, what would be an A minus, or a 3.67 out of 4.00 in the current scale would instead be calculated as an A, or a 4.00.

This change, however, will only affect the incoming freshmen and subsequent classes, and no current classes will be affected by the switch.

With this change, according to Safine, there is a potential for more than one valedictorian — a challenge the school will deal with when it arises. The Universities of California (UC) and many private colleges will recalculate the applicants’ GPA according to each school’s respective GPA scale.

“It’s very important to know that many colleges will do their own grade recalculation, and [students should] not only rely on the high school’s calculation,” Safine said.