<p>As a student who is graduating on the 26th of May I would like to say that i would be really dissapointed and upset if the person who delivered the valedictory at my graduation was someone who had never stepped into the high school. I understand that she took advantage of extra oppor tunities but I want someone up there that has memories and knows the things that have affected our class through the years. Graduation is not about the diploma, they mail those to us at my school, it's about the memories, and I want my valedictorian to be someone who has some of the same memories I do.</p>
<p>What in the world will she talk about...what stories to tell, what trials and tribulations will she recall</p>
<p>If she had any class whatsoever, any understanding, she would decline giving the speech, or at least not give it alone</p>
<p>But sometimes, a person feels, well I worked so hard, I had to go off campus, I didn't really do anything at the school, but I have the best GPA, so I deserve to speak for all the kids I don't know</p>
<p>Did she vote in school elections, did she eat lunch, did she do any ECs, clubs, etc at the school? Any kind of anything besides being a number? Did she decorate posters, cheer at sports events, support other students by watching their shows, reading the newspaper, helping anybody at the school in anyway?</p>
<p>Did she just do homework, or did she do sports, have a part in the play, anything beyond her college classes to be part of the school</p>
<p>OK, this is semi-off topic, but I'm in a related situation to the girl in the story. I'm currently a junior at a VERY small high school (class of 63 students). As long as I don't make any huge mistakes next year, I will be val. </p>
<p>I take classes at the local comm. college, in addition to a full hs schedule, because of a very limited course offerings. My school has a dual credit program, but no community college classes are counted as honors. </p>
<p>For some classes this makes sense (art at the cc is the same as art at the high school). However, another student is taking very advanced math courses at the cc that the hs school does not offer. He needs the credit to graduate, but even though he gets all A's, his GPA is lower than those taking trig because the cc classes aren't weighted.</p>
<p>Currently, I do not plan to notify my school about the multiple academic subjects I have taken at the cc. I don't feel like being penalized for attempting to expand my educational horizons. Yes, I'm playing a game. I've made spreadsheets to determine my exact GPA in different scenarios. But I also feel that my obsessive strategizing over a seemingly inconsequential topic is keeping things fair. If all my non-weighted A's were factored in, I would drop over 10% class-rank wise because of my small class size and the large number of classes I have taken in addition to all the advanced courses at hs. I'm not overjoyed that I feel the need to do this, but until the policy is changed to reward students, I think it will happen.</p>
<p>As long as the rules of the game (in this case, determining valedictorian based on the highest numerical GPA rank) are known to all and consistently applied, there will always be kids who will strategize (or exploit depending on how you look at it) the system to maximize the return.</p>
<p>Then there are kids who simply want academic challenges and are resourceful enough to venture out of the traditional HS environment.</p>
<p>I agree that both categories should be rewarded, seeing that external recognition has become much more favored compared to self satisfaction of having learned or mastered an academic challenge, by perhaps instituting subject-specific awards.</p>
<p>In addition to the traditional valedictorian/salutatorian awards, my S's HS awards also departmental prizes and the prestigious Golden "name of mascot" awards in individual academic subject areas.</p>
<p>As for students winning muiltiple awards, I'm more for sharing the victory stand, so to speak, by limiting individuals to single awards, if nothing else then to instil the magnanimous spirit of winners.</p>
<p>I have a great graduation story. It is about what happened to me. If anyone wants to hear about it PM me and I will tell you about it. </p>
<p>I don't want to start a new thread.</p>
<p>
<p>My brother is a highly educated PhD who runs one of Florida's larger companies. He and his wife are a big believer in public schools - and are doing their all to stay with the public schools. But come middle school, the kids are going to have to go to private schools. The particular area where he lives has (and there is some wealth there) has 25 of 28 elementary schools flunking No Child Left Behind standards, with the three passing schools being "fundamental" schools where the parents agree to participate in the schools and discipline is enforced. There is a waiting list of 9 to 1 to get in the 3 fundamental schools, unless of course, the kid is a person of color, in which case they get in automatically (the schools are tragically short of minorities - even though the only bar is parental participation). The poor souls in the other 25 schools can't transfer to another public school, notwithstanding No-Child Left Behind entitlements, because a federal court integration order would be violated (how ironic). Yes, Florida schools could use more money, but more than anything there is a culture that doesn't appreciate education in so many pockets of the State. I feel sorry for the kids, and in that vein, support the young lady receiving a valedictory award - at some level, excellence needs to be rewarded.
</p>
<p>mam, </p>
<p>I obviously can't speak for the entire state, and you may be correct that the AVERAGE education in the state leaves something to be desired, BUT:</p>
<p>In Florida, there is a large budget for special ed, and special ed includes academically gifted. In our county, my kids' gifted programs have been from 2nd grade on. Even though all of their classes may not have been labelled as "gifted", all of the gifted kids get placed together so obviously the class level is pretty high. My daughter just graduated a public IB program that I would hold up against any of the privates in our area. Because of the merit scholarships that University of Florida gives to IB grads, most of her class will be attending UF or other state schools (tough for a middle class family to turn down free tuition at a top 50 ranked public). However, here are some of the higher ranked colleges that her classmates (123 in IB program) will be attending: Stanford, Princeton, Penn (2), Duke(3), Dartmouth, Northwestern(2), UChicago, UCBerkely, Boston College, NYU, Georgia Tech (3), Williams, WUStL & Rice. No Harvard or Yale acceptances this year, but there has been in past years.</p>
<p>I can also guarantee that community college courses are easier and grading less competitive than IB classes and probably AP also. This girl should not have qualified as valedictorian at a school she didn't attend.</p>
<p>I was just reading this...gosh i wish my state haf a good budjet for speds...especially the other way around...the academically challenged(like mwah) i had such a hard time at public school last yr b/c there wasnt enough teachers to help us out...and i got bad grades i mean bad...now im lucky and go to a special school thats private..and im spoiled jkjkjk its really nice though to go to a school where its made for special kids(LD and adhd/add) I know plenty of familys that would wish they could afford it</p>
<p>My S goes to a private small Quaker School in NJ. The school doesn't rank the kids. There is no Val or Sal. The senior class votes on who they would like to be the speaker graduation day. One female and one male. They always do a great job, bringing tears to every mothers eyes ( and fathers). My kids are very fortunate to be able to be in such a nurturing place. They'll be well prepared of college and the real world. It isn't always about being #1.</p>
<p>Now we have 41 Vals and a motion to just call them "honor students" and be done with it.</p>
<p>Our school, in St. Paul, doesn't rank kids either, and no val or sal. A senior leadership committee chooses two graduation speakers after hopefuls try out. I think the competition to be 1st or second in a class could get really out of hand.</p>
<p>High schools can only reward performance in classes that are in their purview - taken at the school. If a student's educational path embraces college courses outside the school, that is rewarded at admissions time under the heading of 'maximized educational resources and sought enrichment.' (A box checked).</p>
<p>There is no fully quantitative method to select the Best and the Brightest at a high school, so meh - don't fret. Colleges have a better view of an individual's overal record than high schools because the full application is a more complete picture. College transcripts are sent as well as standardized testing scores.</p>
<p>Yulsie:</p>
<p>You are right that colleges do care about college courses a student may have taken. However, some scholarships are awarded only to vals, so for some students, val or sal really matters.</p>
<p>^^This thread is almost four years old!</p>
<p>I know. So why did you bump it?</p>
<p>Maybe someone else bumped it, and then deleted his/her post?</p>
<p>Hmmm, I posted my post #73, following the post by someone today on a four year old thread. AFTER I posted, that person must have deleted his post. As you can see, my post has arrows pointing to the post above it. That post is no longer there. </p>
<p>So, as Roseannarassanadanna used to say: “Nevermind!” :D</p>
<p>I didn’t know you could delete your own post!</p>
<p>
Yds, without that delete feature I’d have been a banned a long time ago. And I would have deserved it, too. ;)</p>
<p>And here I am reading it too :)</p>
<p>Dang, and I was about to astutely point out something about the original story that wasn’t covered in the discussion.</p>