This year’s graduating class of high school seniors is the first class to do so without a valedictorian and salutatorian.
Webster Parish Schools has done away with the time honored tradition of appointing the coveted titles. Minden High School Principal Robin Tucker says this policy went into effect four years ago and it began with this year’s graduating class.
“The people’s progression committee of the parish went with what was going on as a state trend to recognize cum laudes instead of valedictorian and salutatorian,” she said. “When it was that year’s freshman class, this year’s seniors, it was that class it started with.”
The cum laude system pulls more students into the pool for recognition with their grade point averages. Tucker explained the range of grade point averages in order to qualify.
To qualify for summa cum laude, a student’s grade point average must be 3.9 or above, magna cum laude is a 3.7 to a 3.89 and a cum laude is a 3.5 to a 3.69.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Dan Rawls says the reason for phasing it out is so that it wouldn’t affect the outgoing classes.
“You may have five kids that are summa cum laude, you may have eight that are magna cum laude and 15 that are cum laude,” he said. “Before, you would have a valedictorian and a salutatorian and that’s all you would have.”
He says the decision to make this change is because it allows more students to the opportunities for scholarships to college.
“We had a lot of universities that would recruit students because they were valedictorian,” he said.
Also, he says, it took away the possibility of favoritism upon choosing a valedictorian and salutatorian.
“(It was) to alleviate any discussion or contamination of grades,” he said. “They went to a system they felt was more fair, that it truly recognized outstanding academic achievement. I think that over the years, there was a lot of criticism over the valedictorian and salutatorian procedures, and I think this just took the bull by the horns and we’re going go to a university recognition system.”
This system has been implemented statewide, Rawls said.
11 comments
Take away the incentive to give it the little extra effort for the better grade….SMH
Poor poor choice. Should have a Val & Sal.
Such a good idea!
This takes opinions out of it… If you make the grade, you get recognition. I disagree that it takes incentive away. It lets everyone know that if they achieve the recognition awaits. Seems fair to me. But I wasn’t Val, sal, or cum laude anything… so what do I know. What color is the second place ribbon?
Please use grammar check when writing articles!
I wasn’t a Val or a Sal but I sure tried to be. Big problem today is not wanting to single out the highest achievers. Nothing wrong with being the top student in a classroom or a school. Why do we feel like everybody has to get a trophy? Really doesn’t appear to be working very well does it?
Recognize all the smart kids, but also recognize the top two. You could do away with the titles, Val and Sal.
This is so amazingly ignorant! So thankful my son was awarded for his hard work and dedication to his school career. Hate to think what lies ahead for next generation.
Ridiculous.
Political Correctness strikes again. We wouldn’t want any of tha chirrens to feel bad because they didn’t work their respective a$$es off to be the best of the best. And “KHW”…they wouldn’t know how to use it if they wanted to. Unlike those of us who had spelling and grammar drilled into our heads and who can recognize errors by sight, the “journalists” of today at the “Press Terrible” are in too much a of a rush to get their stories printed to bother with proofreading…besides, with the epidemic of thupidity in America, few readers besides us two would probably catch the error and even fewer would bother to mention it. And since we’re in the “error-mentioning mode”, will somebody pleeeease find somebody around here who cares enough to fix the ‘weather widget” error that pops up every time I log onto this site from ANY computer??
No, master dan,we did not have recognition of just the top 2 before this. We had top ten, and it was am MHS tradition before assholes got involved. I can tell you that my son studied 100 times harder to make top ten than he would have if it would have been like this. He could have slept and made these marks.
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