BVA holds presentation on proposed class rank system

High school Principal Zachary Just and others explained the benefits of making a change.

Belle Vernon Area administrators conducted a presentation outlining proposed changes to the high school class rank system at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

High school Principal Zachary Just explained the advantages of a tiered “graduation recognition level system.” Just stated that the current system doesn’t encourage students to sign up for courses that they really want to take.

“One quick example is we have a lot of students that I’ve talked to, seniors, that are going on and want to be engineers, but have never taken any of those courses we offer because the quality points aren’t the same,” Just said.

Currently, the district has a class rank system that categorizes students in numerical order based on their Quality Point Average. The board is reviewing a proposal that would remove class rank and replace it with a system where students would be recognized for their academic achievements through graduation recognition levels like summa cum laude, magna cum laude and cum laude.

The district would potentially remove the titles of valedictorian and salutatorian. Currently, the students with the highest QPA receive the titles of valedictorian and salutatorian, which might lead to students focusing on classes with higher “quality points” to compete for the top two spots.

Just said the proposed system would allow more well-performing students to be recognized who might have focused on other courses and activities during their high school years.

Just outlined the results from online surveys they distributed to students and the surrounding community. He said the community survey resulted in 305 responses with 71.5% saying they prefer the proposed tiered system.

In the survey given to students, 66.4% prefer the proposed system and 33.6% like the current rank system. During the meeting, multiple parents spoke in favor of the new proposed system, but some spoke against it. Dr. Jodi Dusi and her husband Steve, who are parents of two children in the district, were among the supporters.

Jodi Dusi works at the PennWest California campus and told the board that she’s had experience teaching college freshmen who were brought into competitive environments.

“Because I work at a university, I see the freshmen and teach some of those first-semester freshmen, and that a lot of times, that internal drive lacks,” Dusi said, “And I mean that because they’re so interested in ‘What is my grade? Tell me exactly what I can get to get the best grade’ instead of wanting to learn about what their career focus and what they need to do. They’re just sort of brought into that culture of competition.”

Just said the proposed plan would be implemented in phases and that eliminating the class rank system, valedictorian and salutatorian wouldn’t go into effect until the graduating class of 2029.

The board had a lengthy discussion about the proposed system, with director Robert Harhai most strongly questioning it.

Director Tara Jurczak spoke in favor of the plan and said she desires for students to be able to take the classes they would like to take.

“I want them to have all the things, I want them to be completely well-rounded and have a good high school experience, and learn what they actually want to learn,” Jurczak said.

Board members are still reviewing the policy and don’t have a set date for when they plan to vote on it.