Broward Grade Calculator

Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) builds every high school semester grade from three pieces: your Quarter 1 grade, your Quarter 2 grade and the semester exam. Each quarter carries 37.5 percent of the semester and the exam carries the remaining 25 percent. This Broward grade calculator lets you type your two quarter percentages, then tells you where the semester stands and what you need on the exam for the letter you are chasing.

BCPS also uses a grading scale that surprises many families who move in from other districts: there are plus letters (B+, C+, D+) but no minus letters, and a B covers the wide band from 80 to 86. Below the tool you will find that scale, the point system the district actually uses to assign the semester letter, a table of exam letters needed for common quarter combinations, the rules for courses with a Florida end-of-course (EOC) exam, and how honors, AP, IB, AICE and dual enrollment classes are weighted in your GPA.

How to Use the BCPS Grade Calculator

• Quarter grades: type the percent shown in your gradebook for Quarter 1 and Quarter 2. If Quarter 2 is still running, enter your current Quarter 2 average, or leave it blank to see the semester based on Quarter 1 alone.
• Semester exam weight: it starts at 25, the BCPS weight. Leave it there for a regular semester course.
• Grade you want: tap A, B+, B or another letter, or type a custom percent. The tool shows the exam percent you need, the semester grade a 0 or a 100 would produce, and a row for every letter.
• What-if box: type any exam score to see the semester result it would give you.
• Scale table: the bottom of the tool lists the official BCPS percent bands and the unweighted quality points for each letter.

The tool works in percents, which is how most students see their grades in the gradebook. BCPS assigns the official semester letter from letter points instead (explained below). The two methods agree most of the time, but near a cutoff they can land one letter apart, so read the point method section before exam week.

The BCPS Grading Scale

Florida law sets the basic middle and high school scale (A 90 to 100, B 80 to 89, C 70 to 79, D 60 to 69, F 0 to 59). Broward adds plus letters at the top of the B, C and D bands. The table shows the district's percent ranges and the quality points each letter earns for one full credit.

Two details matter. First, a plus letter earns nothing extra on the unweighted (state) GPA: a B+ and a B are both 3.0. Second, the plus does count on the weighted district GPA used for class rank, which is why the weighted columns step up by half a point. An I (incomplete) carries 0 points until it is resolved.

How BCPS Figures a Semester Grade

The 37.5 / 37.5 / 25 split is applied to letters, not to raw percents. Each quarter letter and the exam letter are converted to points, the points are added, and the total is matched to a semester letter. In a traditional (non-block) schedule the values are:

There is one more rule, often summed up as "two out of three." To pass the semester you must pass both quarters, or pass one quarter and the semester exam. A student who fails two of the three parts fails the semester even if the points would otherwise reach a D. Block-schedule schools use doubled quarter values (an A quarter is 24 points), so if your school runs a block schedule, ask your counselor for its semester chart rather than using the table above.

The Formula Behind the Calculator

Because each quarter counts 37.5 percent and the two quarters together count 75 percent, the semester exam can swing your grade by at most 25 percentage points. In practice that means a strong exam can lift a semester by one letter, occasionally two, but it cannot rescue a semester where both quarters are far below the target.

Example 1: Points Method, A and B Quarters

Jordan earns an A in Quarter 1 and a B in Quarter 2 in Chemistry Honors. The quarters are worth 12 + 9 = 21 points. What does each exam letter produce?

Jordan needs an A on the exam for a semester A. Anything from a C up to a B+ keeps a B+, and even a failed exam leaves a B because both quarters were passed.

Example 2: Percent Planner, 91 and 84

Maya has a 91 in Quarter 1 and an 84 in Quarter 2. Her quarters contribute (91 + 84) × 0.375 = 65.63 points of the semester percent.

On the points method her quarters are an A (12) and a B (9), the same 21 points Jordan had, so an A on the exam (90 or higher) would already give her a semester A. The percent estimate asks for 97.5 instead. This is the classic gap: letters throw away the detail inside each band, so a 91 and a 99 earn the same 12 points. When the two methods disagree, the BCPS point method is the one on your report card.

Semester Exam Letter Needed by Quarter Combination

This table applies the official non-block points to common quarter pairs. It answers the question most Broward students actually ask in December and May: which exam letter do I need?

The last row shows the two-out-of-three rule at work. With an A and an F, the points already reach a C, but the semester only passes if the exam is passed too, so a D or better on the exam is required.

Courses With a Florida EOC Exam

Algebra 1, Geometry, Biology and U.S. History end with a Florida end-of-course assessment, and BCPS treats them as year-long courses with one final grade. The EOC counts for 30 percent of that grade, replacing a teacher-made final. In a non-block school the rest is split across four quarters and a midterm.

The total (out of 4.00) maps to a letter: A 3.70 to 4.00, B+ 3.39 to 3.69, B 2.68 to 3.38, C+ 2.37 to 2.67, C 1.66 to 2.36, D+ 1.35 to 1.65, D 0.64 to 1.34, F below 0.64. For example, quarters of A, B, A and B+ (0.60 + 0.45 + 0.60 + 0.525), a B midterm (0.30) and a B on the EOC (0.90) total 3.375, a B that misses B+ by 0.015. The same year with an A on the EOC (1.20) totals 3.675, a B+. To model an EOC course in the calculator, add rows for all four quarters and the midterm with the weights above and set the final weight to 30.

Honors, AP, IB, AICE and Dual Enrollment Weighting

BCPS keeps several GPAs, and the weighting rules differ for each. The unweighted state GPA (minimum 2.0 to graduate, also used for athletic eligibility) gives no bonus at all. The weighted district GPA, used for class rank, adds quality points for advanced courses:

• Honors, advanced and gifted courses: one extra quality point per full credit, earned only with a C or better.
• Pre-AP, Pre-AICE and Pre-IB courses: one extra point for a C or better.
• AP, AICE and IB courses: two extra points for a C or better, but only if you sit the matching external exam. Skip the exam and the bonus drops to one point, and the course is flagged with a "J" on the record.
• Dual enrollment (college) courses: two extra points with a C or better.
• D and F grades earn no bonus in any course type.

Broward also reports an academic core GPA (English, math, science, social studies and world languages) where honors adds 0.5 and AP, AICE, IB and dual enrollment add 1.0 per credit, and Florida's Bright Futures scholarship uses its own state formula with a 0.5 bonus for eligible advanced courses. Our GPA calculator can handle the weighted versions if you enter the point values from the table.

Exam Exemptions, Grade Forgiveness and Averaging

• Exam exemptions: a student who earns a B or better in every marking period of a course may be exempted from that semester exam, for up to half of eligible exams. AP, IB and AICE finals can be exempted but their midterms cannot. Dual enrollment exams and state EOC exams are never exempt (the EOC course midterm can be). Virtual school courses are not eligible. If you are exempt, the semester grade comes from the quarters alone, so ask your school how the exam slot is recorded.
• Grade forgiveness: a D, F or I can be replaced by retaking the course and earning a C or higher. Required courses must be retaken in the same or a comparable course. Both attempts stay on the transcript.
• Grade averaging for graduation: in a year-long course, an F in one semester can be averaged with a C or higher in the other, as long as the failed semester shows a C or better on the semester exam and absences stayed within 10 percent of instruction.

Rounding and How Accurate This Is

The district grading page does not publish a rounding rule for quarter percentages, so this calculator does not round: an 89.6 shows as a B+. Some teachers and gradebook settings do round to the nearest whole number. If yours does, type 89.5 as a custom target instead of 90 to see the score you really need.

The percent planner is exact for the math it does, but your report card letter comes from the point method, the two-out-of-three rule and your teacher's category weights inside each quarter. Use the percent result to plan, then confirm the letter with the points tables above. Elementary and middle school report cards follow different rules and are not covered here.

Tips for BCPS Students Before Semester Exams

• Work out your quarter letters first. With the point system, moving Quarter 2 from an 89 (B+) to a 90 (A) is worth 2.7 semester points, more than the gap between an exam B and an exam A.
• Know when the exam cannot hurt you. Two A quarters guarantee a semester B+ or better with even a D on the exam, so spend extra study time on classes where the exam decides the letter.
• Do not skip AP, IB or AICE exams if weighted rank matters to you. The full two-point bonus depends on sitting the exam.
• Watch the two-out-of-three rule if one quarter is an F. The exam becomes a pass or fail moment for the whole semester.
• Check exemption eligibility early. A B or better in every marking period can take an exam off your plate.

Related Grade Tools

Need the exam score for a class that is not on the BCPS schedule? The Final Grade Calculator works for any final weight, and the Weighted Grade Calculator builds a quarter grade from your teacher's category weights. When the semester is over, turn your letters into a GPA with the GPA Calculator. Students in other systems can use the HCPSS grade calculator for Howard County, Maryland, or the ASU grade calculator for Arizona State University. Browse every tool in Grade Calculators.