<p>Our school is like Warbler's in that the top 5 students sit on the stage at graduation, with val & sal giving speeches. The top 25% of the class walks in in order of class rank, the rest in alphabetical order.</p>
<p>My son's school: top ten are recognized at graudation, val & sal give speeches (wear white robes as opposed to black); so do the senior class prez and student body prez. </p>
<p>This year our sal is one of the most creative and entertaining people we know, and several teachers have asked her to "keep it very short." :-( Boy, that really makes you feel good.</p>
<p>The PARENT of #4 tried to challenge the GPAs of #1,2,3 but the guidance office said that after the third nine weeks that's it. We have over 700 seniors, so they have to stop and calculate at some point.</p>
<p>My D and last son are at a small rural school, and already the PARENT of #2 has procured a schedule manipulation to set up the battle royale. It's pretty had to game this particular system, but this one last loop hole that no longer exist was just big enough.....stay tuned. I'm glad my kids graduate underneath val and sal, and to all my CC friends that have vals and sals, I wish for you a game-free experience.</p>
<p>My school does not weight grades, and the valedictorian and salutatorian both give speeches. Honor grads are listed in the program and wear special cords. My school is pretty small and not very good. We don't have any APs, but we do have dual credit with a local college. We often have more than one val, because more than one student maintains a perfect 4.0. Not weighting grades simplifies things, but isn't always fair. This year, a student lost his status as valedictorian because he recieved a B in a dual credit English class (IMO, the hardest class the school offers). One of the other vals did not pass the entrance exam to take the class, and got an A in the regular English. Nobody did any lawsuits or anything. My solution for my school: grades remain unweighted, val and sal give speeches, but the college classes are graded on a college scale (A=90-100 rather than 93-100).
My solution for your school: Keep the traditional val/sal speeches (I can't picture anyone winning a lawsuit that they are unfair), and state the policy clearly at the beginning of every year. recognize all honor or high honor graduates. Allow any other student to request to give a speech on a first come, first serve basis with an understanding of time limitations.</p>
<p>we have top 7 gpa students considered valedictorians. they each make a speech.</p>
<p>I agree with those who have stated that by definition there can only be a single valedictory and salutation speech. It is an exercise in absurdity and meaninglessness to apply whatever the political/educational/psychological flavor of the month to something so clear and simple.</p>
<p>The two top academics (however it is determined and this is the rub; administrators need to poop or get off the pot) should give the opening and closing statements.</p>
<p>In the next sporting event, in the heat of victory and defeat, should the winner be determined by which contestant was the most well liked and affable or by who would be the most hurt in being denied a sorely needed victory or by passing the buck along to the clamoring audience (as seems to be the case with school administrators passing it along to the student/teacher community, another contest), or to the student quickest on the draw when slinging about one-liners?</p>
<p>Moreover, it seems facile to suppose that the speech givers should be determined by a writing or speech giving contest determined by the administration (how much more meaningless do these speeches need to besuch things already exist for good writers and speakers: both contests and awards; this is supposed to be a ceremony, even in this none ceremonious society of ours.</p>
<p>By the way, my daughter is the Val at her school and is giving the speech, she tells me, with deference, humility and peppery-spice.</p>
<p>That sounds like a really tough situation. We don't "officially" know who the val and sal are. Our school does everything by percentiles and won't tell anybody anything except who's in the top percentile (about 3 students). That's all self-esteem stuff I think; avoiding issues like yours. The big graduation speech is made by the class president and other smaller speeches are made by each of the class officers.</p>
<p>Our school's val had the top GPA, the sal had the 2nd highest. Having said that, we had ties at both spots, so we had 4 vals - all with a 4.8 GPA and all ranked #1, then 5 sals - all with a 4.7 GPA, and all ranked at #5, and on down the line.</p>
<p>Any student can submit a speech to admin committee for review...2 students are chosen for about a 5 minute speech by each. The val & sal rarely enter the competition.</p>
<p>One question for the OP - was the weighting of the AP courses not written clearly in students' course registration materials or in a student handbook, perhaps? Seems that if it had been clearly posted for all to see, the whiny parents wouldn't have gotten very far in their threats (wish they could be fined heavily for wasting a court's time on something like this), but that any school admin with any type of backbone could have just called their bluff and proceeded with graduation as planned. That seems to be the problem alot though - nobody willing to stand up for what they've put in place.</p>
<p>No vals, No sals, no weighted GPAs and no class ranking (goes against schools mission of collaborative education). Because graduating classes are small (under 100) kids the all seniors meet as a group, any and everyone who wants to gives 2 minute speeches. </p>
<p>The seniors then choose 8 speakers. The speakers were varied and came from all walks of high school life. Some that had been there since 6th grade, others who had just come in during high school. Last year the loudest applause and one of the most moving speeches came from a speaker that was mainstreamed during high school. </p>
<p>This student would have never been the student with the highest GPA, ranking or would be attending the most prestigious college. But it was a great moment that was reflective of celebrating every ones victories.</p>
<p>I like the magna, summa distinction. My S is our sal. He would have been the val, but finished the HS math sequence as a sophomore and took math at the U the last two years. Because of that, he had two less weighted math credits than he otherwise would have, and that made the difference. I am sure something like this happens every year. When he answered some questions for the local paper he said he was happy to be recognized for his hard work, but felt it was really just a numbers game and that other students had school records that were just as impressive. Unfortunately for us, there is scholarship for the val; OTOH he might not have gotten into his school of choice had he not had the advanced math classes.</p>
<p>Our public high school weights grades - top one is val, next one down is sal - both give speeches. BUT, final grade point averages aren't available until 2 days before graduation (talk about taking it right down to the wire) so the top 4 kids prepare speeches. I just found out that the #3 student last year filed suit claiming that this process had caused her undue stress. Suit was dismissed, but the result is that the top 4 students have to sign waivers this year stating that this process is not harming them emotionally! LOL. What is the world coming to?</p>
<p>We do not rank students publicly so there is no val or sal.</p>
<p>Those in the top 10% (I think) plus anyone else in the top 20% nominated by a teacher may propose to give a speech. Candidates must prepare an outline of their speech and discuss the speech with a committee of administrators and a senior teacher. Candidates must also be prepared to state in the interview why they would be a good representative of their class. The committee selects, I believe, two speakers. The speakers must stay after graduation rehearsals to practice for their speeches.</p>
<p>To the OP: I think your highschool is going to be in trouble regardless of what policy it adopts because it backed down from the onset. When #3's family made sueing noises because of the way the val and sal were chose, there should not have been any backing down, unless the school had done something blatantly unfair, like changing the criteria right before graduation. If AP level classes in the PA were always recognized, so be it. I don't think that there would have been a snowball's chance in the hot pot that an injunction would have worked, and if it did, so be it. I would have stood firm on that one. And by not doing so, they have now put themselves in the position that they can be intimidated by any sue happy parents bullying them about school policy. </p>
<p>Cirtieria for val/sal vary from school to school, and are rarely made public. I am going through graduation of my 6th kid and I have no idea how the val is going to be selected. My girls had to be one of the top kids, but I had no idea how the gpas were counted for the val/sal spots. I believe they were eliminated from the running because they were transfers to their high school, but I never looked into the policies. If they got the honor, that would have been fine, but it was not something I was going to fight or campaign for. But there are folks who do, and as a result a school needs to stand firm regardless of what policy they adopt. There is no way they are going to please everybody, so it is more important they stick to the policy than what policy they adopt.</p>
<p>Our school's policy is pretty cut and dried-- the honors are strictly determined by GPA; APs and honors classes are weighted and only HS classes count. One of S's counselors implied that we might have a valid argument because this year's val transferred in with weighted grades in classes our school doesn't offer as honors. I can't imagine opening that can of worms, but I'll bet it's just a matter of time before someone does.</p>
<p>I went to a high school that had so many people with GPAs over 4.5 that they figured there was no point in giving out precise ranks or designating vals & sals. Instead, any member of the graduating class could audition to give one of two (or three?) speeches at graduation.</p>
<p>All of the top students were honored at awards night, with most awards being given out in specific subjects. NM students, presidential scholars candidates, etc. were also recognized. Somewhere between 50 and 70 of the 425 graduating students were recognized for one thing or another! The really cool thing about this was that students who didn't have the highest overall GPAs but still excelled in certain areas were still recognized as top students.</p>
<p>Finally, at graduation, one male and one female from the graduating class were each awarded a special award. They weren't necessarily the students with the absolute best GPAs, but they were chosen by vote of the entire faculty from among the top 5% of the class, taking into account not only their outstanding academic achievement, but also their athletic involvement, community service, etc.</p>
<p>Nothing was purely a GPA game :-P</p>
<p>At our school, val and sal are both determined by weigted GPA. The top three give speeches, as well as the class president.</p>
<p>No official val or sal here; instead, we have a "Senior Scholar," the kid with the highest unweighted GPA calculated to the thousandth place after 7 semesters. Every time a thread like this comes up, I'm deeply grateful for our school's unweighted/nonranking policy; all the jockeying for position and trying to move up on the next guy doesn't bring out the best in parental units. For at least the last 8 years, the Scholar has taken the maximum number of APs/honors/accelerated courses possible at our school - it just always works out that way.</p>
<p>What I like best about not weighting grades and not ranking students is the resulting environment in which students might as well focus on their own personal best instead of another student's results. The way to wind up with the highest GPA isn't by jury-rigging your schedule or second-guessing whether your closest rival is taking a summer college chemistry course instead of AP Chem, it's by doing consistent excellent work. </p>
<p>The Scholar gives one grad speech, the senior class president gives another, and a faculty member chosen in a class-wide vote gives a third. I like the idea of kids auditioning to speak and would gladly lengthen the grad ceremony to include one or two such speakers.</p>
<p>The school's reasoning in designating the top student the "Senior Scholar" instead of valedictorian is kind of ... puzzling. If the student with the highest GPA gives a graduation speech, doesn't that make him/her the de facto valedictorian? I suspect it's an attempt to avoid much of the angst outlined above, with parents threatening to sue when they don't like the speaker lineup, however it was determined.</p>
<p>A special edition of the local paper publishes the names of all graduates in our county by school, with pictures and mini-interviews of each val and sal that are always enjoyable to read (favorite book? most influential teacher? etc.) Because our Scholar isn't a "valedictorian," he/she isn't included, and I've always found that a shame. All the more so because at last night's award ceremony, my daughter learned that she's this year's Scholar :) . She was dazed for several minutes, ecstatic for ten, and by the time we got to the car, very nervous about the prospect of actually coming up with a speech. Writing a good valedictory address is probably harder than earning the title.</p>
<p>Geez....at our graduation the Val, Sal and at least three of the class officers speak. In addition there is a commencement speaker. Our Board of Education has a reception for the top 10 students. I honestly can't believe that people sue over class rank and graduation speeches. And I agree with an earlier poster...for some kids, getting an A in an AP fine arts course would be an impossibility just as for others getting an A in physics would not be possible. One of my kids did is taking the AP music theory course. It's not an easy course...period. Also both of my kiddos have gotten honors credit for wind ensemble...BUT they have to do a ton of work beyond school for this credit including being in an outside of school ensemble for the whole year (precollege ensemble), auditioning for and being accepted into one festival, taking private lessons, playing in a recital, preparing a solo piece to play for the wind ensemble by memory.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for all of your input. And congratulations to parents of sals, vals and all graduating seniors. I'm going to summarize your thoughts and present them at the next meeting. I do want to say that I think the administrators at the school did tell the parents of #3 that the policy stood firm - but the parents then went above the administration and directly to the school board. From what I've been told, it was all quite ugly.</p>
<p>So - nun-- is it your school board that appears to be gutless? I agree with Jamimom - if the clear policy was in place since early in the school year...let the parents go ahead and try to get a court to intervene (not sure they'd succeed), and give them a very public fight. Am guessing all that posturing would be so much hot air.</p>
<p>I do think that it was the school's legal department that made the decision to capitulate. The whole thing was ridiculous - I think all the parents who feel they need to sue the school or resort to manipulation with summer classes and all types of other shenanigans just so their little darlings can be number 1 should just take a minute and read the post on parent's cafe about the kids who were killed in a car accident on the way to their prom. It really puts things in perspective for all of us.</p>