Students who continue to fail will be placed on a “watch list” to receive extra-help classes, as well as tutoring from other students. If they need to make up a failed course, they will be given the option of attending an evening school, known as “Sunset Academy,” that will charge a fee of $150 per class.

The total cost of these support efforts to the district is expected to be less than $10,000, school officials said.

Max Werner, 17, an A-student whose father, Mark, is president of the school board, said he and his friends liked the no-D policy because no one should be satisfied with such a low mark. “People are going to have to try harder,” he said. “It’s not like a nice college is going to see all D’s on a report card and want to accept that student.”

Dr. Reynolds said he used a similar grading policy  “A, B, or do it over”  when teaching college classes in Wichita, Kan., in the late 1990s. About half of his students in those classes had to rewrite their initial papers, he recalled, but eventually nearly everyone was turning in work that merited an A or B. “I have never given less than a B,” he said.

In summer school last week, 79 Mount Olive High students were repeating classes they had failed during the year. Mark Fiedorczyk, the summer school principal, said he expected to see an increase next summer because of the no-D policy.