<p>Our school district decided this year to not recognize the valedictorians and salutatorians at every high school. Instead of recognizing and having them speak at graduation, the seniors get to vote on one male and one female from their class to speak.</p>
<p>Personally I think this is a bad idea because I believe that the valedictorians and salutatorians have earned the right to speak at graduation by having high grades in an academic institution. To me, it is now another popularity contest.</p>
<p>Is there anyone else who lives in a school district with this policy?</p>
<p>My kids’ school allows anyone apply to speak, and only one will speak (plus someone from student government body).</p>
<p>My college allows anyone apply to speak and only one will speak.</p>
<p>I think it’s reasonable because the Vals may not be interested in speaking and the speeches will be more interesting if the schools can choose the best speakers.</p>
<p>My school does not rank, nor does it compute GPA; we therefore have the same voting system.</p>
<p>I don’t see how this is an issue. You recognize the right to speak at the graduation as one reserved to the valedictorian and salutatorian. The school district simply does not.</p>
<p>Let’s be honest – I don’t think that the speech at the graduation is why many (if any) students strive to be valedictorians. The most likely reason someone would consider it a right is because it is traditionally done that way. Well, salutatorians no longer give the address in Latin, so clearly we are only concerned with tradition when convenient.</p>
<p>The point is, although it’s a nice gesture, I don’t see how it is that big of an issue. The top students can still be recognized at the graduation ceremony. Or, the val and sal could briefly speak while an elected speaker delivers a longer address.</p>
<p>Why shouldn’t the class have a say in how they are honored at their graduations? Normally, I’m all for tradition and pomp, but I guess not here.</p>
<p>In the case of the OP’s school, I think it would have been kinder to announce this as a new policy for September’s incoming freshman hs class. That way kids who may have worked hard for valedictorian status over the past several years aren’t disappointed to learn that the speeches they hoped to make have just been eliminated.</p>
<p>I do think that the school district has the right to choose what students will speak at graduation. In our local hs, it’s the student with the highest GPA (which we don’t call a valedictorian) and the senior class president. At other schools, it’s the val and sal; in my hometown, kids audition for the honor.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best method is a combination: Have the top ten students (those who are interested) audition to make the speech. The winner can be selected from among a panel of three, one senior student, the HS principal, and a school board member.</p>
<p>Another school here that has multiple Vals. The speaker can be any one who applies, writes a speech, delivers it to a committee of students, teachers, admins and they pick who speaks.</p>
<p>This is the first year our school district has done this. I found out when I asked the valedictorian’s father about his son giving the speech. One of the things his father shared was that his son decided in 9th grade that he wanted to be valedictorian and one of the reasons was to be able to speak at graduation. Even though the two speakers are nice kids, they are the same two speakers who were voted on the homecoming and prom courts every year, so there is the feeling that it is now a popularity contest.</p>
<p>This is only with non-IB students. At our school and other IB schools in the District (we have three) the valedictorian and salutatorian system was stopped a while ago because IB students were seen as too cut-throat. For full-diploma IB students they have Magna Cum Laude, Summa Cum Laude and Honors IB. The IB students vote on two speakers from the Magna Cum Laude group (one male and one female). </p>
<p>It is different and I feel for the valedictorians this year as they expected to be able to speak, until told differently a few months ago.</p>
<p>I would’ve been really relieved if I hadn’t had to give a speech as Valedictorian. Having to do that was as much a punishment as anything, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing my GPA dip in the last semester.</p>
<p>That being said, I don’t think the speakers that auditioned were any more interesting or insightful than I was. It’s incredibly hard to say something that isn’t just a cliche.</p>
<p>The district next to ours has a vote. Every school develops their own traditions and not every val or sal is a creative orator and the kids know who will give a great speech. Our district has three speak but frankly I don’t know what the criteria is because we don’t have vals and sals anymore…I’m pretty certain one of the speakers is the class president and this year that person is headed for Harvard but I couldn’t tell you if that person was 1,2,3,4,5 etc. I don’t know, these days it seems like there isn’t a clear one and two and the top handful of kids are pretty interchangeable (and all amazing in their own ways).</p>
<p>My school doesn’t rank, so we don’t have a Val or Sal. The school president (elected by popular vote the spring before by all students at the school) will give a speech, which is witty and well written. At the ceremony celebrating those who will graduate Cum Laude (effectively, though not formally, the top 10%), two students from the group are chosen by the faculty to give speeches; they’re the most charismatic ones of the group.</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily think the policy is a bad one, but I do agree with a previous poster who said it should have been announced sooner.</p>
<p>My school district doesn’t do valedictorians. If it did, my school alone would have 10+… and so the speech responsibilities fall to the class president, which I find to be a much more sensible way to appropriate speech assignments. After all, the class president should inherently be delegate to his peers, and from what I can tell, the speeches given at my school’s past few graduations have not disappointed (one has even gone semi-viral on YouTube).</p>
<p>If I were valedictorian in an environment that still appointed class speakers in the classic manner, I would refuse to give one. And I know several individuals who, as their high schools’ valedictorians, found having to prepare speeches aggravating – a couple wrote their speeches only the night before graduation and did not care to say anything beyond generic.</p>
<p>So if speech responsibilities are not already entrusted to any specific individual, why not open the opportunity to all individuals who would want the task of preparing a speech? The graduating students are going to be the recipients of the dispensed advice, so I don’t see how allowing them to choose who they want to hear from is so terrible. I doubt this situation would play out in the normal “popularity contest” way, either, as that might likely elect an individual who can’t speak publicly to save his life anyway.</p>
<p>It is a tradition for valedictorians and salutatorians to give addresses at graduation. Anytime there is a break from tradition, it needs to be done sensitively and sensibly. If a school wanted to break from this tradition, I would suggest having it start with the graduation of the rising freshmen so that no one already at the school feels as insulted. </p>
<p>At my graduation, the val and sal spoke as well as the class president. For college, I believe their was a student president who spoke, but no val or sal. I don;t know how colleges do it. Son’s grad had several kids speak, one by application, two for honors but they were not val or sal. FOr college, I would assume you could have a number of vals, especially at big schools.</p>
<p>It depends on what the expectation was. If it’s a long tradition or expectation, suddenly changing it could be a problem.</p>
<p>Our high school has one val and one sal. D1 was sal, and her year they changed the protocol so that the only the val spoke and she (the sal) led the pledge of allegiance instead. Which was fine. She didn’t particularly want to write a speech, nobody (beyond her friends and parents) particularly wanted to hear one, and leading the pledge was at least something.</p>
<p>D2 was a different story. Way back in the 9th grade when she and her best friend both got straight A report cards for the first semester, they decided to both keep it up the rest of the way and graduate as co-valedictorians and write and give the speech together - one saying one line and the other saying the next line all the way through the speech. </p>
<p>Now the school had never had co-vals in living memory. Because thanks weighting, they had always been able to slice the baloney thin enough to distinguish between the top students, even those with perfect report cards. But the girls thought of that and contrived to take the same number of honors, AP, and IB classes to keep their possible grade points exactly the same. And sure enough, even with taking different electives, they did manage to each keep up their straight As (although they each had scares and close calls along the way) the whole way and were named co-vals. First time ever. And they did indeed stand up there and give that speech together just as they had planned it three and half years earlier.</p>
<p>I was quite touched and impressed while watching the two of them stand there together and speak. Not because my daughter was (co)val, but because those girls had made this ambitious plan and carried it out over a period of three and a half years. They actually pulled it off. </p>
<p>They (and I) would have been crushed if after all that the school decided not to have vals speak anymore.</p>
<p>That surprises me. Lots of kids are good at academics but not interested in speaking. At our graduation we got to hear 3 valedictorians speak… and have separate teachers do intro speeches for each. They were decent speeches and thankfully not too long. But the most enjoyable student speech was at Senior Night. The top 2 kids in the student vote opted to do a joint speech, and it was a hoot.</p>
<p>At our school people are asked to audition for staff members. None of the Vals stepped up to try out. However one Sal did. I think this indicates that none of our Vals even wanted to speak.</p>
<p>In the region we live in, no schools rank, there is no val and sal (the terms do not even exist), no one knows who has what GPA and the speaker of the graduating class is chosen by the students. It is a non-issue for everyone, but only because its always been that way for a millenium…so there is no loss to val and sal since no one knows who they are nor if they did know it was them, they would never have thought it was their right to speak or be recognized.</p>
<p>This will sound rude but from the outside, but its just another silly American tradition that most of the world fails to appreciate.</p>
<p>It is not a silly tradition as it represents the recognition for the two best students in the high school. </p>
<p>It has only become silly since the PC/Lake Wobegoner morons found a way to add non-sense such a multiple vals (speak about silly.) Vals and Sals who understand that the award recognizes excellence are also looking forward to addressing the graduating class.</p>
<p>I don’t think my graduation had a speaker. We have no rankings, and even if we did we have no weighing. I doubt many could recognize more than a quarter of our graduating class, so even having someone elected to give the speech would be silly.</p>