ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. -- The Adams 50 school district is about to undergo a drastic change. Two years after being put on academic watch with sagging test scores and only 58 percent of students graduating on time, the district is beginning a new system called Standards-Based Education.

The program groups students according to academic performance, not age, and eliminates A-F grades in favor of a numbers system.

A student who scores a 1 is not proficient; a student who scores a 4 has the ability to teach the lesson to others.

Metz Elementary in Westminster is the pilot school and has been running the system since the beginning of the school year.

In Lindsey Abbott’s literacy class, kindergarten-aged children learn alongside 6- and 7-year-olds who have tested into the same academic level.

"There's nobody that's really behind and feeling just lost," said Abbott. "And there's nobody that's sitting there just bored."

"It's a way of delivering education in a totally different way and engaging the student as an active learner in the process," Adams 50 Superintendent Roberta Selleck explained.

Selleck said for students, the system is like a video game.

"They cannot go to the next level until they've mastered and demonstrated proficiency because the game won't allow them to go," she said.

Selleck said at Adams 50 there will be 10 achievement levels. Students can move up after taking a computerized test that confirms their proficiency.

The system will go district-wide at elementary and middle-schools in fall 2009 and at high schools in 2010.

Administrators have launched a massive educational campaign to help parents and students understand Standards-Based Education.

But the system is not without its kinks. It was first implemented in Alaska’s Chugach school district. Selleck said the results were dramatically positive, with students excelling academically.

But where Chugach excelled, Selleck acknowledged that other Alaska schools that tried the system failed, and ultimately abandoned it.

A challenge for Adams 50 will be meshing their standards-based program with the state's.

Metz Elementary principal Shannon Willy said children will still be expected to take the CSAP. For one day only, they will be grouped by age to take the test.

Colorado Board of Education officials said since there are no grade levels, it will be up to the district to ensure that students take the appropriate test for their grade.

The board has praised the program and said it is working with Adams 50 to iron out any wrinkles.

On the high school level, there are still questions about how the system will translate for students applying for admission to college.

"We have several years to work that out because our first graduating class under a standards-based system would not happen until 2014," Selleck said.

Abbott said she is already seeing proof that the system is working.

"It has worked amazing for our school. Our scores have gone up tremendously," she said.