The race to the top will be over soon at Township High School District 211, which will be phasing out its class rank policy over the next two years.
The board approved the move Thursday, which will eliminate the ranking system for a variety of reasons. While the district hasn’t had a valedictorian since 1998, they would still give rankings for students and had two separate “top 25 honors” for both weighted and non-weighted grade point average.
Those graduating in the class of 2013 will be able to have a rank on the transcript by request, and it will be eliminated completely when the class of 2014 graduates.
“We just don’t think it’s as accurate of a way to measure students as other methods,” said Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Samantha Dolen, who was in charge of looking into the matter.
She said there were a handful of factors that came into play for eliminating the ranking. First, she said they found students would sometimes take classes specifically to boost their ranking, or retake classes even if they received a decent grade the first time around. She said eliminating the ranking would take that pressure away and encourage students to take classes they wanted to take instead of those they would take simply to climb the ladder.
The administration also felt the ranking system created a high-stress, overly competitive environment for students trying to get the highest ranking possible.
Dolen added that the administration thought the ranking wasn’t an accurate way to measure a student’s success. She said a student could have a 3.2 GPA, slightly higher than a B, and still find themselves in the bottom half of students.
With the new policy, instead of ranking and having the top 25 students, they will have an academic scholar award, but that will be more like a “dean’s list” at a university — an honor that comes with achieving a certain GPA, no matter how many or few students meet the threshold.
But in the end, Dolen said they felt comfortable eliminating the rank because colleges and universities typically do not use it during the application process anymore.
“Now that less and less high schools are using it, it has become less important,” she said.
