School Board Approves Changes In Class Rank System

By Susan Coney

The Board of Education has decided to change the way the school district ranks students.

At its June 7 meeting, the board voted to move away from ranking students with an ordinal number system, such as a first, tenth, or hundredth in a class of 300 students, to placing students on a graph representing their ranking in the overall academic context of their class. From the information on the graph the student can see where they are in relation to the rest of their peers.

Under the plan, students will be placed on a graph according to their grade point average. Two separate graphs will be used: one will be weighted according to the difficulty level of the courses taken; the other will be unweighted.

Interim Principal Pat Llodra has advocated moving away from a class rank system to a graphic interpretation. “The trend across the country is to do away with class rank. The devil’s in the detail,” she told the board Tuesday, suggesting that it can be a complicated process. Ms Llodra stressed, “We would like to do away with class rank, we don’t think it is in the best interests of our students. We would like to represent our students graphically.”

The proposal brought before the board states that a transition will be made to not report class rank as a routine procedure. The school would continue to calculate and have available class rank information for those circumstances in which ranking data is required, such as for some scholarships and admissions to some of the service academies. Also a valedictorian and salutatorian would still be designated for each graduating class based on academic achievement. The transition would not affect the present sophomore class, but the students who are currently freshman, the Class of 2008, will not be ranked.

Superintendent of Schools Evan Pitkoff emphasized, “If a college requests a class rank we will provide it for them.”

Dr Pitkoff went on to say, “We need to do a better job selling our high achieving students to get into better schools. I don’t think we have been doing the best job representing our students. We have competitive students. Most of the ERG [Educational Resource Group, a comparison group of similar schools in the area] schools have gone to the graph system. All ERG A schools have done this and most of the ERG B schools have gone to the graph.”

At a recent meeting with the parents of high school students, the subject of class rank was discussed. Some parents voiced concerns that class ranking was an earned position and that it showed the strong work ethic of the student to achieve top ten status. Other parents felt that if their child did not test well and had lower SAT scores but had a higher class ranking it showed they work hard but are poor test takers. Many parents found it hard to believe that the colleges do not care about class rank.

Ms Llodra said, “I think parents are very concerned about doing away with class rank. It is a change. We all grew up in the class rank system. We need to make a transition to the graphing system of ranking students.” Director of Guidance Neil Culhane said, “Parents have a lack of confidence in that change, there is a security in that number. ‘I’m 15th in the class.’ However, the colleges have no problem interpreting the graphs.”

Information presented to the board by Ms Llodra showed that most top-ranked schools are indifferent about the reporting of class rank for college admissions. In the documents presented, comments about a bar graph or histogram were most favorable. Schools would like to see something graphic since this would give an overview of the entire class. This would be a useful tool for the admissions personnel. Some colleges want just a weighted GPA others want both weighted and unweighted.

Board member David Nanavaty summed it up by saying, “There is only a benefit to going to the graph. I think it’s crystal clear. I think the class rank system does a disservice to our students.”