Say good-bye to straight-A students in Montgomery County's public elementary schools (grades one through three).

On their next report cards, instead of receiving the traditional letter grades of A, B, C, etc., first-, second- and third-grade students at public schools in the county will receive ES, P, I or N, The Washington Post reported:

Teachers mark students with an ES, P, I or N in each category to indicate how close students are to mastering what they should know by the end of the school year. ES means 'exceptional,' P means 'demonstrating proficiency,' I means 'in progress,' and N means 'not yet making progress or making minimal progress' toward meeting standards.

"Those new letters will also apply to students in first through second grade, who used to get O’s, S’s or N’s," The Post added.

Students also will receive separate marks on "learning skills such as 'effort,' 'intellectual risk taking' and 'originality' with separate codes of DEM (demonstrating), PRG (progressing) or N (not yet evident)," The Post added.

"District officials say the switch, which will eventually also apply to fourth- and fifth-graders, will give parents more details about their children’s academic performance and provide more rigorous standards for what being 'proficient' in a subject area means," The Post reported.

Read more about the new grading system on The Post's website.

What do you think about the new grading system? Will it help you better assess your child's academic progress? Or, does the new system simply replace one set of letters with another? Is it too confusing? Tell us in the comments.