<p>How do you weight the GPA for the difference in teachers? I know it's very rare for two students to have had the same teachers all the way through... so what should be done if one teacher is a bit more strict in grading? (I say that as the teacher who often gave a student the only B in their four years of high school.)</p>
<p>As for students gaming the system, how about defining which courses should count toward a val/sal GPA? Perhaps we could all agree the PE and drivers ed shouldn't count? (After all, is there an AP PE course?) (There are AP art and music courses.) Perhaps courses taken outside the high school (and yes, I'm including college courses and distance courses in that) could be omitted?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, even I think this is ridiculous. There's no end to it, and days/weeks/months could be spent in squabbling over the details. It is my opinion that the privilege of giving the student speech at graduation should be competitive; allow the students who want to speak to compete for the honor. How about a speech competition?</p>
<p>I'd actually go for that! :) Our Val and Sal speeches were sooo bad it was embarrassing. I turned to my H and said, "These are the smartest kids at school?" Our Sal's speech was basically, "I have no clue what I'm doing next. If you do, good for you." Our Val's speech had something to do with laughter -- we expected it to be funny. But it wasn't. She talked for just a minute or two and told us to make sure we had laughter in our lives - enough to even make us urinate sometimes. I kid you not.</p>
<p>I wouldn't have minded having the speeches screened, at least. A competition would be one way to do that.</p>
<p>But only if the speeches were written at school. Our debate queen's mother has written most of hers since middle school! It's what she does for a living.
Somehow the teachers never figured out why what she writes in class is never as good. They attribute it to her excellent editing skills.</p>
<p>binx - Too funny!!! From your post I have to conclude that you and I were at the same Graduation, except the Val/Sal speeches were reversed. The Sal (headed to UPenn) was funny and smart, and spoke glowingly of the teachers and classmates that had made his HS days the best of his life to date. The Val (headed to some school in New Haven CT) gave some awful rendition devoid of humor and grace. (Actually it was a diatribe about the Sal and how the Val had committed himself to not getting beat out for top academic honors. Eww.)</p>
<p>Our school had senior awards night last night. We only have one val and one sal. It's based on weighted grades.<br>
The top 5 kids gave speeches on "my most inspiring teacher" (1 about the Latin teacher, 3 about Spanish teachers and 1 about theater teacher, interesting choices)</p>
<p>After the speeches the Principal announced that the Val and Sal would be two of those 5 but at this point it was too close to say which it would be. They were all told to prepare speeches for graduation and the val and sal will be determined on the last day of school (next Thurs). Graduation is next Sunday. Seems kind of unfair to keep them in suspense almost right up until graduation and for the three who didn't get it to have spent time and effort on a speech not to mention the emotional toll of thinking you might be val/sal. </p>
<p>Also at our school only kids in NHS get to wear special cords at grad. designating their honor. Those in other honor societies (art, languages, vocational, theatre) are not recognized....doesn't seem right that talent other than a high gpa goes unnoticed.</p>
<p>"What's wrong with having a val? I think there should only be one, not 7. The whole idea of giving the distinction to more than one student is just wrong to me. You also can't just eliminate it to appease the rest of the students and their parents."</p>
<p>Fudgie,</p>
<p>I'll write it slower for you.... they all met the established requirements. In other words they tied based on established critieria. </p>
<p>To break the tie should we..</p>
<p>play paper, rock, siccors?
Toss a coin?
Kicks from the mark? (guess the sport)
and my personal favorite Ro Shambough? </p>
<p>Please don't start going well they should look at EC's... Do we score one church group higher than the other? What about the kids who don't do church EC's. Is feeding the homeless worth more than working at the animal shelter? </p>
<p>Now I am kidding you as my morning coffee kicks in.. if you want to figure out how to break ties after the fact and not have to pay a settlement of some sort.. go ahead. </p>
<p>All I've avocated is a consistent, clear set of requirements to meet. </p>
<p>If you want to use AP's as weight, what do you do about running start? If you don't have this program at your school.. RS is a program where HS students attend college and take college level classes for both HS and College credit. The state pays. </p>
<p>How much detail (read money) should administration spend on whittling down to a single val? Set your requirements and live with em. Cause the day after nobody cares much beyond the families.</p>
<p>binx, careful now about "screening speeches." I completely understand that you're looking for excellence -- or at least something the audience can stand to sit through -- but "screening" prevents free speech from prevailing. That is, the faculty/administration is likely to select a student who says the "right" things. Besides, I think it's enlightening to sit through a truly vacuous speech by the "top" student -- it gives the audience a glimpse into the meaninglessness of the whole GPA thing.</p>
<p>PackMom, our school also gives out cords for our district's version of the NHS, which I think does a good job of recognizing a wider swatch of the student body and does, at my school, include kids who performed well in all sorts of curriculum (covers 3.6 to 4.6 GPA). They also have cords for Tri-M, the music honor society, but strangely enough will not allow the language honor societies to wear cords. It's weird, and makes me think that they are looking to phase out the Tri-M cords, too. </p>
<p>And at my school they decide Val/Sal in the Spring, once first semester is over. We also have a top 30 dinner that recognizes the other top students, but of course that is just as arbitrary as anything. It was supposed to be pretty nice, though--you recognized your most influential teacher and stuff like that, but of course I couldn't go because I was on a plane to Boston to visit Wellesley.....my school doesn't seem to understand that some of us DO apply to more than one school and don't get notified until April...</p>
<p>My DS's school picks val and sal after finals are input after last day of school. due to a bad weather day, that meant that val and sal were notified less than 24 hours before the speech and ceremony! Usually they have top 4-5 prepare a speech, but this year they did not. My son's friend moved up from the third spot to the sal spot at the last minute, and had to scramble to write a speech. The speeches weren't particularly profound or moving, but it was so fun to be at graduation, noone cared. (btw, we've never had a tie for val or sal that I've heard of - 4 years of weighted grades and percentage grades [89% as opposed to As and Bs] means that very few kids share the exact same gpa.)</p>
<p>I had never given a thought to how the kids were ranked until my kids hit high school and the oldest took the toughest course load and a friend was bragging about his son's straight As (I knew what classes this kid was taking). I was a parent who lobbied for reform and actually the outcome I'm OK with. Our school has instituted a formula where the class is ranked using GPA, curriculum and also the score the students achieved on the ACT (which is now required in our district). Interesting this year the Val had a GPA of 3.8 something, took the hardest curriculum and did extermely well on the ACT. One val. One sal. and the rest are called honor graduates and I think they cut that off at the top 10%. I do not like straight GPA calculation because it does not reward those students who take the hardest curriculum.</p>
<p>Maybe the school should change their policies? At my HS, grades were given on a 100 point scale so there was only one val and one sal. Even if you're using a 4.0 or 5.0 grading system, there are ways of choosing a val/sal, by weighting honors/ap courses and assigning A-'s/B+'s/B-'s etc. I guess it depends on the class size but I just can't imagine that there are 21 students who got a 4.0 cum while taking the same number of honors/ap courses (unless the HS just hands out A's to 2/3 of the class). It would be easier to differentiate students if there weren't grade inflation in HS.</p>
<p>The way my school does it--total grade points, ie 4+5+3+4+5 and so on and so forth, does make a tie possible, but huge ties are unlikely. For at least two years we have had 2 valedictorians and 3 salutatorians (which, my father pointed out, there really shouldn't be, since those kids are technically ranked third. They do have the second highest grade point total, however). That's within the realm of reason, in my opinion. I like this way because it also eliminates some of the petty competitive moves, like taking a study hall to boost your GPA, since it is TOTAL grade points and not the average. No way is perfect, though.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if that is a good way to determine val/sal because it favors kids who take summer school. Summer school is usually considered easier and it favors kids with parents who are willing or able to fork out the extra money.</p>
<p>"Maybe the school should change their policies? At my HS, grades were given on a 100 point scale so there was only one val and one sal. Even if you're using a 4.0 or 5.0 grading system, there are ways of choosing a val/sal, by weighting honors/ap courses and assigning A-'s/B+'s/B-'s etc. I guess it depends on the class size but I just can't imagine that there are 21 students who got a 4.0 cum while taking the same number of honors/ap courses (unless the HS just hands out A's to 2/3 of the class). It would be easier to differentiate students if there weren't grade inflation in HS."</p>
<p>Here's the magic answer to your question...WHY? </p>
<p>I mean, it works, nobody's unhappy, no body's going to school board meetings calling it unfair, it hasn't hurt a single val or caused them to lose scholarships, nobody's having to decide if EC should matter or how far back to go if there's a tie. In others words, no fuss, no muss. Do we have to make it so somebody's po'd? </p>
<p>By the way, by others definitions here of how they do it, both my kids would have still been the #1's, best gpa, most aps, highest SATs etc.. </p>
<p>I just have to say it was alot more fun having the group of vals hanging out at the house together. Geeky smart kids have enough going against them in HS than worrying about cutting the herd down to one. These kids parents when we meet them on the street, don't feel slighted in the least bit and we don't feel slighted by their inclusion at graduation as vals. </p>
<p>I mean what is this? The HIGHLANDER? There can be only one!!!!! ;) </p>
<p>If it works and nobody's angry, should we change it?</p>
<p>Summer school courses do not count--only courses taken during the semester at the HS, up to the max of 7 courses/semester. Neither do any online courses or anything like that.</p>
<p>Some kids need the competition implicit in a system that has vals and sals, even if they themselves don't aspire to be number one or two, but are happy with number 20 (like my son). The system works against some kids' motivation and for other kids' motivation. There is no one right answer for everyone. I am sure all public schools will eventually drop the one val/sal framework; so those of you who are all worked up on that side of the issue--don't sweat it.</p>
<p>Some of the schools in our area did away with vals. I thought at one time that it was a wimpy copout for "feel-gooders" who didn't want to have anyone feel like they're less than #1. Now I think it's because of all the BS and arbitrary stuff that's behind the numbers- how a school weights, whether you take PE or art/music, whether you take AP Bio or AP Environ, what teacher you get....
Our school continues to have vals and THANK GOODNESS that all the vals so far have been extraordinary students and not gamers. But maybe the day will come along...</p>
<p>DD1 just graduated from HS last weekend. She was not one of the 14 Vals or the Sal (out of 450 students). I was flabbergasted to see that not one of the NMFs made Val. After graduation I looked up the student guide and found that class rank is based on weighting but Val and Sal are not specifically addressed. According to DD, for Val/Sal they use no weighting. To me that just doesn't make sense but, in the end, it matters little. DD made it into a fabulous school next year and she probably won't think about that one B in AP History that knocked her out of Val. DD2 coming behind in two years may be conniving to get a B because she wants nothing to do with speaking in front of 1500 people. :)</p>
<p>I like how our school does it. They eliminated Val/Sal 5 years ago, as that is in constant flux; besides final exam results are not in by graduation, and definitely not by publication of the program announcements. So they print the names of the top 5% of the class. Which in a class of 400 is 20 names.</p>
<p>In the end, any award that is not standardized is of diminished meaning. Although I was never in competition to be the Val/Sal and didn't care (hey, I thought the fact that I brought my rank up from 55th to 14th was pretty darn impressive anyway), my personal pet peeve this year were the Outstanding Senior Awards, something based even less on an objective formula. At the end of the night, my consolation was that I won the only objective award recognized that night--NMF, and I would be going to a college better or as good as any of the seniors. </p>
<p>Erin's Dad, neither of our Vals were NMF's, and only one of the Sal's was. No offense to anyone's straight A student, but excellent test scores and straight A's are not directly related, in my experience. I don't think that it is uncommon at all for the Valedictorian not to be the smartest person in the class (not that the Val COULDN'T be the smartest person)...it wasn't that way in my school. Not that the Val's weren't smart, but they were definitely grades first kids. But I think that they would be that way whether or not there was a Valedictorian status. As long as a school gives out grades, there will be some kids who will want to make a race out of it, in my opinion.</p>