If you expect more from a student, then don’t demand less.

That seems prima facie, but not so, according to Tommy Lowry, the superintendent of the Public Schools of Robeson County.

After The Robesonian received numerous complaints from teachers regarding Lowry’s new ground-floor grading policy, which demands that no student receive a numerical grade of less than a 59 — a single point below passing — Lowry answered our why? question.

“Because with me, everything is about the children,” Lowry said.

More on the policy, teachers’ concerns and Lowry’s defense can be found in a page 1A story today by staff writer Gabrielle Isaac.

Lowry expected the criticism, and doesn’t dismiss it outright. Teachers complain that a student who sleeps through class could get a numerical grade equal to a student who does the work but poorly. They say as well that a student could literally do no school work all year, and barely pass the final with the help of a curve, and be promoted to the next grade.

The teachers we talked to also didn’t appreciate the timing of the policy, which arrived on the eve of grades being dispensed. So a teacher who was fed up with a do-nothing and potty-mouthed student who was prepared to reward that child appropriately was given no choice beyond assigning a letter grade that was a single point below passing.

But Lowry’s rationale is firmly planted. He would rather have a struggling student in the classroom than having that same student bouncing around out of school, and on the streets. So his ground-floor rule is intended to prevent a student from getting so far behind academically that catching up and passing becomes impossible.

It’s not a new policy — nor is it unique to Robeson County.

Our school system recently dumped an A, B, C, D, E and F grading system in favor a numerical one, and just like that, 10 points, and not seven, separated the grades. For example, under the letter-grade system an A ranged from 93 to 100, but the numerical system made it 90 to 100.

Under the old grading system, the floor was a 65, four points below the passing score of 69. Under the new system, the floor is a single point below the passing grade of 60.

We don’t like the policy, believing as we began today’s Our View that more — not less — should be demanded from students. Life will only get more difficult for these students when they exit high school, and getting something for nothing is a poor message to send.

But we understand as well this county’s demographics — and that so many of our students come from homes, many of them broken, where an education isn’t valued. Lowry has adopted a policy that gives additional time to at-risk students to pick a more positive path, redeem themselves, get a diploma and enter the real world better able to succeed.

Lowry and the teachers who contacted this newspaper with their concerns share the same goal even if they have different notions on how that can be achieved — keep our children in the schools and get them educated to the degree that is possible. They are all worthy of our praise, not criticism, on this particular matter.