Montello Elementary School Principal Jim Cliffe, foreground, addresses the Lewiston School Committee on Monday evening about new programs to help students at his school. Listening, from left, are Superintendent Bill Webster and committee members Luke Jensen, Benjamin Martin, Francis Gagnon and Paul St. Pierre, and City Councilor Kristen Cloutier.

LEWISTON — Implementing a new student grading system for proficiency-based learning will mean more spending next year, Superintendent Bill Webster told the School Committee on Monday.

It will be a “major investment” of several new positions, computers and teacher stipends, Webster said.

No costs were given.

Next year, software for the new grading system will be rolled out to grades K-9, Webster said. For that to happen, he recommended additional staffing and resources to help teachers use the new software.

Proficiency-based learning, which is a state requirement, means students must demonstrate that they know the material before they can progress to the next lesson or grade, or receive a high school diploma.

The new software program called “Empower” is being used in the fourth grade. Next year plans are to roll it out to grades K-9.

For that to happen and be successful, Lewiston must increase efforts and spending, Webster said.

He gave four recommendations that will be in his proposed 2017-18 budget to be released March 6:

* New computers for elementary teachers, because too many have outdated computers that will make it impossible to use the software.

“We can’t expect our teachers to do what needs to happen without them having adequate computer equipment,” Webster said. Middle and high school teachers have relatively current computers.

* A director of Empower implementation, a temporary position on a par with an assistant principal, with an annual salary of about $80,000. The director will help with professional development next year, which will be devoted to the new grading system, Webster said. The director will also be involved in community meetings, parent meetings, public presentations “so we all have comfort in the direction and process,” he said.

* A new elementary technology integrator to focus exclusively on the new software program. It would be someone who fully understands the nuts and bolts of the software program and would be a right-hand person to the director.

* Stipends for a classroom teacher in each school. The teacher would be that conduit of information from the building to the director and help with questions that come up.

More information and the costs will be shared during the budget presentations, which will begin Monday, March 6.

Given the challenges in the budget and the material that must be covered, the committee agreed to start all March meetings at 6 p.m. instead of 6:45 p.m.

And to better understand proficiency-based learning, the committee agreed to hold a three-hour workshop March 22.

Committee member Tom Shannon said it may take more than one workshop for committee members to get their arms around the new grading system.

“Our teachers are working God-awful hours on this,” Shannon said. “We need to let them know we appreciate it, in spite of the fact we still have questions. I don’t like the idea that there’s discomfort out there among those who are doing the hard work.”

Committee member Benjamin Martin said he didn’t like the idea of hiring a new temporary position because there are already a number of administrators.

In January, school principals presented the work they had done in the past year on proficiency-based learning. They said they weren’t clear on how it would work, that they were running into barriers because different standards aren’t always clearly measurable.

Fourth-grade parents complained in January that they didn’t know how their children were performing.