LEWISTON — Parents and teachers were given an opportunity Monday evening to express their views — and frustration — about the new proficiency-based learning standards imposed on freshmen this year.

The School Committee heard concerns before holding a workshop on how to address shortcomings in the system that replaces traditional grades with numerical ratings of one to four.

In a handout, Superintendent Bill Webster wrote, “The School Committee is now in the difficult position of either supporting our ongoing implementation or advocating for a return to more traditional grading.”

He outlined a 12-point plan for improving the fledgling system.

Lewiston mother Kate Silva said she is not a fan of the new system.

“They’re not going to have a valedictorian, a salutatorian, they’re not going to have top 10 percent, because they’re not going to have a way to do it,” she said.

“If you look at a lot of the colleges, they give you money from the universities based on where you rank in your class; they’re not going to be able to get that,” she said.

Silva said her freshman son came home last week and was informed her that grade checks were no longer being performed for athletics, “because the school board can’t figure it out.”

Lewiston teacher Mary Rider addressed the committee, saying she has seven students who have individualized education plans and five can perform some work with the help of educational technicians. She said the availability of ed techs has been unpredictable at best.

“I have not seen any work from (two of the seven) since November started,” she said. “They have shut down. They know that they can’t get any better than a one, so why even try?”

Rider said stretched resources make it impossible to implement seven separate IEPs in her classroom within the current system.

“I’m causing them more harm than good by keeping them in that classroom. Their growth is being retarded,” she said, because they know they can’t achieve the standards and she is not given the tools to help them.

“I’m advocating for them to be pulled out and put in a special education classroom,” Rider said.

Diane Chamberlain said she is “a concerned parent who has already inundated you with the many shortcomings” of proficiency-based learning.

“This appears to be implemented by fiat where teachers were threatened or displaced from their positions if they were not willing to go along with the plan,” she said.

“We cannot in good conscience experiment on the freshmen class,” Chamberlain said. Students are paying the price for a flawed plan rolled out at the onset of their first year of high school, she said.

Pointing out how students grow throughout their education, taking on more responsibility, Chamberlain questioned how the proficiency-based system will prepare students for real life.

“If they have not developed the appropriate work ethic and feel they can have as many do-overs as they need to get the job done, they will be fired,” Chamberlain said. “Similarly for those going on to college — they will not be allowed any do-overs and everything will count.

“We are doing them a huge disservice by setting the expectation that this is acceptable,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the new grading system, senior policy adviser for the Great Schools Partnership Duke Albanese said the transition is expected to have difficulties but that it’s the law of the land for Maine.

Albanese presented a list of 55 New England colleges and universities that support “stronger student preparation,” according to his handout. Nineteen of them are in Maine, he said.

That number shrinks when Albanese includes each community college in Maine by name, as well as an entry for “Maine Community College System.” Maine’s universities were handled likewise, listing each campus, followed by “University of Maine System.”

Also conspicuously absent from his listing of colleges throughout New England are those in Massachusetts and any mention of Ivy League schools.

Silva, a member of a Facebook group called the LHS Class of 2018 Parents, said she doesn’t see much hope of ironing things out with the school.

“The tenth grade teachers are going to have the same problem next year because they’re not going to know what they’re doing,” Silva said. “Then it’s going to go into the 11th grade.

“So every grade, this Class of 2018 is going to be the guinea pig for the next four years?” Silva asked.

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