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Campbell School District more clearly defines valedictorian criteria
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
CAMPBELL
Campbell City Schools officials are hopeful that clarifying the district’s system of ranking high school students, and its selecting of a class valedictorian, will increase enrollment in more-rigorous courses.
They’re also hoping that more specific policy language will eliminate any confusion over what, exactly, qualifies a student to be named valedictorian or salutatorian.
“Kids didn’t understand, coming in as freshmen, how [they] become valedictorian,” said Matthew Bowen, superintendent. “Now, when we get to their senior year, there’s no question.”
But to Sylvia Meris of Campbell, it’s too little, too late.
When her middle daughter, Kaliope Meris, graduated from Campbell Memorial High School this past spring, she was passed over for valedictorian in favor of another student who had the same GPA — 3.9 on a 4.0 scale — but had taken a greater number of advanced classes, netting what the district terms “quality points.”
“My daughter was told [those advanced classes] weren’t needed, that it didn’t matter because classes weren’t weighted that way anymore,” Meris said. “I was told at the end of last year that the policy was going to be revised, but what good does it do me now?” According to the district’s bylaws and policies, updated Sept. 17, the student with the highest GPA and the greatest number of quality points will be selected as valedictorian. A student can still be named valedictorian if he has the greatest number of quality points, but not the highest GPA.
“Sometimes you have a child with a high GPA who may not have taken as many courses, or as rigorous courses,” Bowen said. “The policy sets some very clear expectations and some very high standards to encourage their success ... and also encourages them to take the more-rigorous and challenging classes that best prepare them for their future.”
Quality points are assigned based upon a three-tiered scale. An A in a basic class, for example, would earn a student four points, but five points in a college-preparatory class and six points in an honors class. Likewise, a C in a basic class would earn two points, but 21/2 points in a college-preparatory class and three points in an honors class.
In addition, the salutatorian is determined by the second-highest number of quality points, though if an equal number of quality points are earned by the prospective valedictorian and salutatorian, the student with the higher GPA will be selected for the higher honor.
This policy isn’t new, Bowen said. Valedictorians and salutatorians are picked the same way they’ve been picked for years.
But the previous version of the policy, which had last been updated in February 2004, didn’t explicitly define the role that GPA and quality points played — and particularly the various scenarios now described in it.
The previous version, for example, explained that quality points would be used to determine class rank and offered a breakdown of the three-tiered scale. It also indicated that valedictorian and salutatorian rankings would be based upon the total number of quality points earned at the end of the third grading period of a student’s senior year.
This vague policy bred confusion and controversy, said Thomas Merva, who graduated from Campbell as valedictorian in 2012.
Merva admitted that he didn’t have the highest GPA among his classmates — his was a 3.86 — but that he had “way more quality points than everybody else,” which was, apparently, what mattered most in the picking of valedictorian. The quality points, he said, were earned from taking the most-challenging classes available.
“Even when they chose who valedictorian was, we still didn’t know why,” Merva said. “No one actually explained [the policy], and no one really understood it.”
Tom Robey, who served as superintendent from 2005 until Bowen took over in August, acknowledged that the district’s policy didn’t deal with things like dual credits and flex credits “as well as it should have,” which prevented students, parents and staff from understanding how they were counted and calculated into class ranking.
“All school districts try to communicate that to students, then clarify that through guidance counselors and teachers,” Robey said. “But when there are things that are not addressed as well as they should, that’s where confusion comes up.”
Bowen said the district decided to revisit the policy language, and amend it, at the start of this academic year. It’s now more concrete and more easily understood, he added.
After the board of education approved those changes, Jacquelyn Hampton, principal of Campbell Memorial High School, met with all ninth-grade students to review them.
Students then signed a statement attesting that they understood how valedictorian and salutatorian would be determined for the class of 2017.
It’s a step in the right direction, said Meris. “I just want it to be fair for all the kids that deserved it and earned it,” she said.