West Aurora School District 129 will do away with the valedictorian system based on class rank and will replace it with a new system beginning with the graduating class of 2024.
The West Aurora School Board unanimously voted recently to replace class rank with the Latin Honor system as Naperville School District 203, Indian Prairie School District 204, Oswego-based School District 308, Geneva School District 304 and Batavia School District 101 have done.
The school board in recent years has discussed the potential of moving away from the current valedictorian system.
In 2018, Sofia Partida, a student member of the school board and co-valedictorian for the West Aurora High School Class of 2018, brought up the issue to the board, saying she would like the valedictorian system ended because of the pressure it puts on students.
West Aurora School District Superintendent Jeff Craig had said the Latin Honor system would be an option as an alternative. The system honors the top 10% to 20% of a graduating class.
The administration was prepared to present a proposal about a potential transition from the class rank-valedictorian system to the Latin Honor system to the school board in March 2020, however the pandemic began and the potential move was put off.
West Aurora School Board President Richard Kerns praised West Aurora High School Principal Charles Hiscock and West Aurora High School Assistant Principal of Teaching and Learning Whitney Martino for collecting the data to help the board make a decision on the issue.
“We never want a student to have to decide between what kind of class they are going to take based on whether it is going to affect their (grade point average) or if it is something they are going to enjoy and what they want to do as we heard from student board members,” Kerns said.
Class rank is a mathematical summary of a student’s academic record compared to other students in their graduating class, Martino told the board in a March 21 presentation.
“Depending on what school you are at and what year you are graduating, the mathematical summary can be different,” Martino said.
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Martino said that over the last several years, college admission officials are looking less at class rank and more at transcript summaries, especially looking at grade point averages and participation in Honors Advanced Placement dual-credit courses.
Class rank was placed on transcripts at West Aurora High School somewhere between 1926 and 1933, she said. West Aurora High School in 2014 began to include Latin Honor designations on diplomas and hold banquets to honor the top 5% in the class.
Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.