The superintendents of Duval and St. Johns counties are questioning some of the proposed changes to the state’s school grading system.

Duval Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals and St. Johns Superintendent Joe Joyner said they are particularly troubled by three of the 15 rule changes the State Board of Education will vote on during its Feb. 28 meeting.

In Duval had the proposed changes been in effect during the most recent year, the number of D and F schools in the district would go from 23 to 66. The number of A and B schools would drop from 86 to 50. Duval got those figures from the state and the Times-Union has requested the state's school-by-school simulation for the rest of Northeast Florida's districts.

Search FCAT scores since the 2007-2008 academic year

The superintendents take issue with a proposal to include the academic performance of students with developmental disabilities and students learning English in calculating a school’s proficiency scores.

Both superintendents said the rule change would make severely disabled students who are merely learning to swallow count toward a school’s proficiency scores.

“It’s dumb,” said Joyner. “That is really dumb.”

“It goes beyond reality,” said Pratt-Dannals. “I just don’t understand it, why this would be taking place.”

Duval’s Mt. Herman Exceptional Student Center, which currently doesn’t receive a grade because of the severity of its students' disabilities, would earn an F grade under the proposal.

The school system leaders also question a proposal to reduce any school with less than 25 percent reading proficiency to an F grade despite how school grade points a school earned. A school could earn enough points for a B or a C grade, but if fewer than 25 percent of its students are proficient in reading, the school would receive an F.

And finally the superintendents want the state to wait a year before deciding to change the amount of academic growth a student scoring at the FCAT 1 or 2 level must make yearly to have demonstrated adequate growth. The proposal would call for students to display 18 times more academic growth than they currently have to for a school to get credit for having improved the student academically.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2012-02-16/story/duval-st-john...