I think your argument would have had far more merit had it come up before it affected your child.
Now it doesn’t look like a matter of being unfair, merely bad for your daughter.
As long as the rule is applied to everyone in the same circumstances, it’s fair.
@milee30 I went to HS awards ceremony to show support to my kid. My kid went there because he did not want admin to get upset at him if no show. Imagine awards ceremony if most awardees didn’t show up. My spouse went there to take photos of her kid.
@calmdownkids --“I just question whether a freshman year with one D and mostly As should keep you from receiving an award for your sophomore year performance.”
No. It shouldn’t keep you from being on the honor roll for two years. Usually honor roll recognition is a reflection of immediate past performance. In my experience you could attain the honor roll for each individual grading period.
I do however think that other academic awards may have a different standard as the guidance counselor said. I’d ask for a clarification especially since the counselor brought it up.
If one of the purposes of honor roll is to inspire students to “strive even harder,” then wouldn’t a two-year ban do the exact opposite? Honor rolls traditionally have been to acknowledge grades in one brief snapshot of time - either a quarter or a semester. A mandatory two-year ban is counterproductive under your own definition because:
1 - It discourages students from stretching their minds. Why take that honors class when you can take an easier class and get on the honor roll?
2 - It discourages improvement in the class with the bad grade. Why strive harder to bring that grade up? The damage is already done - what’s the point?
3 - It discourages students from performing at their highest level in their other subjects? Why bother in history if the math grade has already eliminated any possibility for honor roll?
No one is saying that a student who gets a “D” or even a “C” deserves to make honor roll for that semester. But to ban them for the next two years - essentially most of their highschool career - is just stupid. If an 80% is a B, is the student who makes a 80.0% in every class really more “honor roll” material than a student who makes A’s in every class except for one in which he makes a 79.4%?
To the OP: Yes, I think the rule is unfair. But, while I wouldn’t “fight” it per se, I would conjure up a good argument as to why it’s unfair (and I think your child is the perfect person to do this, not you). I would also have a discussion with your child about how sometimes life isn’t fair, we don’t always get what we deserve, and that internal motivation to improve will serve her much better in the long run than achievement without struggle. Look at how many successful people in life did NOT make honor roll in high school? I have a classmate who never once made honor roll, but she’s nationally recognized as a leader in her field.
Honor roll isn’t the end goal here. Neither is val/sal. For those college bound students, college is the goal. The students that play the game of taking courses just to boost their GPAs/rank are playing the wrong the game. At least in my DD’s HS, those students had much worse outcomes with college admissions and merit money.
IMO, it’s up to parents to be helping with broader picture thinking.
"Imagine awards ceremony if most awardees didn’t show up. "
I can imagine that and think the results would be generally positive, including schools thinking more about what students and parents value rather than just going through the motions for the sake of tradition. Our school is not terribly respectful of our time or what we value and is not receptive to input or open to examining the value of the process. It is at the point where every grade level has a “graduation” at year end that runs from 2-4 hours and is full of “awards” that are not generally meaningful or motivating. Let the few kids (and parents) who find those awards motivating or meaningful attend the ceremonies and whittle them to a reasonable, respectful length. Win/win.
My mom tells a story from when I was in junior high that gets to the OP notion of awards for motivations sake. My junior high gave out a “student of the week” award with an announcement and picture in the lobby. I never won and apparently (although I don’t remember it) it upset me. I guess one week, near the end of 8th grade, I was not chosen after I had a very accomplished week but the individual that was chosen was the barely passing, regularly suspended, smoking in the bathroom student. Again I was supposedly upset so my mom went to the school to investigate.
The answer from the school was that the award was not necessarily an academic award but was a motivational tool dressed up as academic recognition. I was a good student that did not need the push to perform. That week’s winner had not skipped school at all, had not gotten in trouble, and had passed a test and as such was “student of the week”.
I never won the award but turned out fine. The point of this story is it was more important to my mom to get the bumper sticker on the car to “show off” than it was for me. Once she learned the bumper sticker probably wouldn’t be showing off what she might think it showed she dropped worrying about the award. My sister never received the award either and I don’t remember my mom caring about it at all.
A private school near us gives exactly one award, presented at reunion to the alumnus/a who has given the most in service, not for service to the school but to the world at large. There are no academic awards at graduation, no athletic awards, no “most improved” or “most community service hours.” A relative had already who won pretty much every award her high school offered transferred there. I think it’s been good for her, as the school encourages learning for learning’s sake, not the pursuit of plaques and trophies.
At my kids’ schools the graduation speakers have been chosen by their peers. The kids seem to know who has something to say. It hadn’t always been the most popular kids. Because the school is small the kids all know who the top achievers are and they are rewarded with excellent college results.
Imagine a world in which high school students did their best and loved to learn. A world in which parents didn’t complain or make excuses for why their kids weren’t at the top and “the best” in every category. Imagine a school where the kid learned one of his/her biggest life lessons when they failed a course and then discovered how to really succeed in that field. Or, teachers and guidance counselors looked at kids and were really honest about their strengths and weaknesses. Wait, I think I’m trapped in a time warp. Ok waking up to the 21st Century.
[Imagine…}
You mean Lake Wobegone? 
@bluebayou Not familiar with Lake Wobegone, but maybe I’d fit in there. I’m pretty old school when it comes to lots of things. Have passed that on to my kids too. No short cuts or excuses. Work hard and try to win. Be a gracious loser ( no excuses). When you win be happy (and gracious). Appreciate life and other people.
I thought Honor Roll is a year by year or semester by semester thing…I don’t think that previous years should count.
I also don’t think that D+ in geometry should affect whether you get Honors Award in English.
Oh…are we adding awards ceremonies to this discussion?
My opinion…schools should ditch those too.
My second kid was 8th in her class…top 5 % all four years of high school. She was a top student in many of her classes. She never received an academic award…at all…until her senior year when she was a presidential scholar. Luckily she received a number of awards outside of school that were put on her college applications.
At our HS, the awards were really a “teacher’s pet” popularity contest…with one or two kids taking more than a handful because they were the ones the teachers voted for.
After my kid graduated, I discussed this with the principal…who knew my kid very well (she was his morning phone receptionist for three years) and he had no idea she had never gotten an academic award.
Our school now does not have a big broohaha in the evening anymore. The teachers quietly, with no hoopla, acknowledge the kids in some way. And they can pick several kids, not just one.
Frankly…that is a better way to deal with this, in my opinion.
Was my kid bothered by this? Well…she never said a peep about it while in HS (and neither did we). But funny…years later she mentioned it.
@bopper, you’ve hit on the main point of my OP. My daughter is barred from being recognized at the academic awards ceremony for two years because of one semester grade of D-plus. Kids with much lower GPAs than her (some in less rigorous classes) will be honored. My original intent was to see if any other schools had similar two-year bans.
She’s mature enough to understand that not having the award isn’t the end of the world, and that in adult life no one will be there with a trophy/award every time she works hard. It’s more of a FOMO situation than anything else at this point (not that awards ceremonies are so much fun, but all her friends will be there). But we are moving on.
On that note I think we can close this thread.
Best of luck to @calmdownkids and her D moving forward.