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Schools

Pinellas wades into schools' perfect storm

Would eliminating valedictorians and salutatorians also end controversy about class rankings?

By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published January 26, 2006

	[Times photo: Carrie Pratt]
	Palm Harbor University High seniors Chelsea Brinkman, left, and Chris Oslebo are in the running to be valedictorian. Like many other districts, Pinellas County is considering a new recognition system.
	Best of the best Should school districts eliminate the valedictorian and salutatorian titles for graduating seniors? Yes, that will help take the pressure off finishing first in the class. Yes, but schools should honor a wider selection of top graduates instead. No, naming the top two students is a good tradition.

ST. PETERSBURG - For four years, Matthew LeVine earned perfect grades at St. Petersburg High School. So did Hayley Jade Fink, his classmate in the school's International Baccalaureate program and his competitor for class valedictorian.

In the end, their battle was decided by a mere one-thousandth of a grade point - the extra credit Matthew earned in a math class. He got to deliver the valedictory speech at graduation.

Hayley got to watch.

"It was almost a punishment of sorts," says Lisa Fink, Hayley's mother, recalling the 2004 battle for the IB program's top spot. "We put a lot of weight on her being valedictorian. When you do the amount of work I saw her do, I felt she deserved it."

Hayley, now a sophomore at Harvard University, is not the only student to feel cheated by the way educators determine class rankings. But at least in Pinellas County, she could be among the last.

Like many other school districts around the nation, Pinellas is considering ending its tradition of recognizing the top students at every school.

Sarasota educators did away with the practice years ago. Miami-Dade recently approved a plan that would honor a wider range of students.

Pinellas School Board members discussed a proposal this month that would eliminate the valedictorian and salutatorian designation. Schools would instead recognize the top 5 percent of standard diploma students - about 20 - in each class.

Similar proposals unleashed a barrage of criticism in the past.

Critics, mostly parents, say doing away with "vals and sals" is a form of political correctness aimed at avoiding hurt feelings. Others worry the district is heading down a slippery slope toward mediocrity.

At least one School Board member agrees. Mary Russell, who supports honoring the top two students at each school, compares the tradition to the Olympics: There can only be one winner.

"Sometimes it's luck and sometimes it means you can't stay home from school when you're sick," Russell says. "But I don't see how we can ignore the fact that they get that top position."

The practice of naming a valedictorian and salutatorian dates to the 1840s, or not long after the first public high school opened in the United States. Conceived as a way to honor high-achieving students, the tradition has become a major source of angst for school districts, pitting student against student and consuming many hours of administrators' time.

The New Yorker magazine recently wrote about a Michigan student who sued the local board of education when she was named co-valedictorian instead of sole valedictorian. The student asked for $200,000 in compensatory damages and more than $2-million in punitive damages.

In another case, an NAACP branch demanded that a Virginia school district pay for an African-American student's first semester at college. The district's offense: changing how it calculated grade point averages in a way that knocked the student out of the running.

Hillsborough County school officials say the selection of vals and sals has not been a problem. And things haven't gotten nasty in Pinellas - at least not yet.

But as far back as 1987, board members talked about alternate plans after a feud over the No. 1 spot erupted at Tarpon Springs High. The next year, a similar debate raged at Dixie Hollins High.

Last year, a bitter fight broke out at Palm Harbor University High. Two students in the school's medical magnet program were trumped by two students in the traditional program who, unlike their competition, were able to take classes that carried extra points.

"When someone puts their whole heart and soul into something from when they are 13 years old," Cathy Kelly, mother of one of the losing students said last spring, "you just can't back down."

Those extra points, which are attached to honors and Advanced Placement courses, are at the heart of many val-sal disagreements, said Pinellas assistant superintendent Catherine Fleeger. While most courses are based on a scale that awards four points to an A, three points to a B and so on, the more difficult classes give students one extra grade point.

Over time, that extra credit can dramatically improve a student's GPA. And therein lies the problem, Fleeger said. Rather than taking drivers education or signing up for the yearbook staff, students cram their schedules with classes that carry extra points whether they're interested in the courses or not.

"It can cause students to compete for the No. 1 spot, to their own detriment," Fleeger said. "They choose courses with the goal in mind that they want to be No. 1 versus selecting courses that would be for their benefit."

Adding to the dilemma are middle school classes such as geometry and algebra that count as high school credits. Students who successfully complete those courses as eighth-graders come to high school a step ahead of everyone else.

That can be great academically, administrators say. But it can cause problems when it's time to select a valedictorian.

"I had a parent come in whose child was in sixth grade who was already trying to find out what courses the child would have to take to be valedictorian six years later," said Julie Janssen, principal at St. Petersburg High School. "I think that's a little bizarre."

Chris Oslebo had no idea when he took Algebra 1 and Spanish 2 at Carwise Middle School that it would launch him on a path toward a possible valedictorian berth at Palm Harbor University High. But Chris, 17, is among a handful of students at the school vying for the title.

With a weighted GPA "around 4.8," he said the possibility of being valedictorian provides a "healthy competition for everyone." But he says he is not fixated on being No. 1.

"A lot of the people at this school are top-notch students," he said. "I'm really just a needle in a haystack. I'm taking harder classes, but there are a lot of other people doing that, too."

Chelsea Brinkman, also in the running at Palm Harbor, said she didn't realize she had a shot at valedictorian until last year.

"With applications and things, it probably helped to have a rank," said Chelsea, 18. "But once I'm in college, I don't think it will make any difference. It's just a nice honor."

In fact, college admissions officers put little stock in whether an applicant was a valedictorian or salutatorian.

"I just don't see being the valedictorian or salutatorian of the class as that important when you look at the overall quality of a secondary program," said Pat Herring, interim admissions director at the University of Florida. "To a valedictorian, we would say, "Congratulations, that's great. Marvelous accomplishment.' But is he or she going to be any more successful at the university than the student who was No. 2 or No. 3? Probably not."

Matthew LeVine, who two years ago become St. Petersburg High School's valedictorian by the thinnest of margins, said the honor "doesn't make one iota of difference" now.

The 19-year-old Emory University sophomore has found that few of his peers are impressed with his high school ranking. Most of them were at the top of their class, too.

"In high school, you're a big fish in a small pond," LeVine said. "Now you're a small fish in a gigantic pond full of lots of fish."

In the end, he said, it comes down to priorities.

"Whether they take away the title or not, someone is still at the top of the class," he said. "It's not about titles, it's about what you've accomplished. You should be putting your best foot forward anyway."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

[Last modified January 26, 2006, 01:03:03]