The Mahomet-Seymour School Board will hear from high school principal Chad Benedict and board member Colleen Schultz about class rank, achievement and awards at the Monday, Aug. 17 meeting at Middletown Prairie Elementary.
Schultz requested the topic (Policy 6:330) be on the agenda during the Aug. 3 school board meeting. Superintendent Lindsey Hall said Benedict was planning on speaking to the board about the same topic during that meeting.
The movement to move away from ranking high school students according to their grade point average to the model the collegiate system uses: honor students as cum laude (top 25 percent), magna cum laude (top 10 percent) and summa cum laude (top 3 percent).
Unit 5 in Normal moved to this model in 2015 and many Chicagoland-area high schools, including Lincoln-Way High School District 210, Joliet Township High School District 204, Consolidated High School District 230, Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202, Homewood-Flossmoor High School District 233, Marian Catholic High School, Lemont High School, and Providence Catholic High School moved away from the class ranking system, according to a 2016 article by the Chicago Tribune.
Crete-Monee High School, which phased out the class ranking model with the Class of 2020, knew that Latin Honors was a sufficient system as colleges rely less on class rank and more on how students performed under “a good strong curriculum,” the Tribune reported.
“They look at the student as a whole,” Laura Hirsch, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction at Crete-Monee District 201-U, told the Tribune in 2016.
Lockport Township High School followed other area schools by 2017. Locally, Heritage High School follows the Latin Honor System when recognizing graduates.
Schultz said that the intention behind changing the system now is to eliminate the harm that class ranking causes.
“The idea here is that we would continue to recognize high academic achievement but in a way that celebrates academic accomplishment without harming students,” Schultz said. “We traditionally honor the top handful of students through ‘top 10’ but now we would honor the top handful of students through ‘summa cum laude.'” Schultz said. “We would additionally have the honors of ‘magna cum laude’ and ‘cum laude’ to celebrate different levels of academic performance. I was deliberate to structure the policy so that there was no requirement to eliminate honors such as valedictorian because of this policy.”
The policy would just provide a movement in priorities within the district rather than a change in tradition.
“I strived to create a framework that allowed our community to maintain the traditions that they value such as valedictorian and honoring the most high achieving students with academic honors/special seating at graduation/graduation cords while giving our superintendent and HS principal the authority to eliminate the harm caused by ranking,” Schultz said.
Benedict’s presentation, according to the board packet, will set the stage for Latin Honors to begin with the Class of 2025. At that time, valedictorian and salutatorian recognition would be replaced with the Latin Honor System, and student commencement speeches would be voted on by a panel of staff and students.
The district recognizes that class rank places unnecessary stress upon students, who can access their class rank, and take courses solely upon how the choice will affect class rank. Benedict writes that the elimination of the practice would give students the freedom to take courses based on their interest without the worry of grade point average impacting class rank.
He also acknowledged that many college and university admissions departments have stopped using class rank as an admissions factor, rather looking at college and career readiness for every student.
The district reports that 26.42-percent of the Class of 2020 graduated with a 4.0 or higher GPA. That number was consistent with the five-year average of 28.69-percent, but less than the Class of 2019, which had 32.46-percent of graduates with a 4.0 or higher GPA.
Schultz said that this is one reason why the switch needs to be made now rather than later.
“Basically, when you have a really great school district with really great students, the policy of having class rank can harm some of them,” she said. “Scholarships and college program admissions often have class rank limitations (eg. you must be the top 10-percent of the class to be admitted; only students in the top 25-percent of the class can apply for this scholarship, etc.) Having so many high achieving students here in Mahomet Seymour, we have the situation where some really great students fall short of some of those arbitrary cutoffs.
“In this year’s senior class we have students who have been told that they have the grades to receive a scholarship but will be denied because of their school rank. We have another who has been told that his 4.6/4.0 gpa qualifies him for admission but at his current class rank (not in the top 10-percent) he will be denied admission to the college program of his choice. If we eliminate class rank, that student would qualify to be admitted.”
Giving the development of the system to the district administration, Schultz said that administrators and teachers would still have a system in place where students would be challenged.
“Students will have all the same incentives to work hard and get good grades. If, for example, the GPA cutoff for summa cum laude was 4.75, all students with that GPA or higher will earn top honors.
“The only difference is that the students will have an incentive to work towards this absolute goal/standard rather than working towards being better than their friends. They will still be evaluated for admission to college and other programs based on their grades and there will still be honors and awards given to those who are exceptional performers.”
While parents were happy to hear that their student’s grades would not be affected when school went remote in the spring of 2020, the effect may have rippled even further, Schultz said.
“One of the hard decisions was made during COVID was the decision to eliminate grades for the spring 2020 term,” she said. “Because students missed out on a semester of grades and honors/AP points, that will result in harm to certain students and benefit to others. “
“Student 1 and 2 have been harmed under this plan,” Schultz said. “They took the same classes and got the same grades but they will, all other things equal, have a lower class rank than student 3 simply because of the grading decisions made during COVID.
That’s just one example…one can envision other similar situations as well.”
With the uncertainty hovering over the 2020-21 school year, Schultz will make a push for the Latin Honor system to begin with the Class of 2021.
“This eliminates any concerns about ongoing harm and inequalities that might arise in this unprecedented year ahead of us,” she said.
Schultz’s policy is on Monday’s board agenda for action. Hall recommends that the board not adopt the policy. Benedict’s presentation is listed as a discussion item.
