Schools

Lyons Township High School Votes to Eliminate Class Ranking

District considering adopting college cum laude model to recognize honor students, the Chicago Tribune reports.


Lyons Township High School Dist. 204 voted to do away with class rankings during the board of education’s Monday meeting.

Starting with the class of 2017, students will no longer be ranked according to their grade point averages, nor will there be a  valedictorian or a salutatorian, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The school will also start reporting its top, mean and bottom level grade point average on the school’s profile. Also under consideration is adoption of an alternative cum laude college model to recognize honor students.

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D204 Superintendent Timothy Kilrea told district trustees than many high schools in the area have dropped the class ranking system, the paper said. College admissions officials also place less importance on class rank.

Other high school districts that have dropped the class ranking system include Hinsdale, Arlington Heights, Lake Zurich, Naperville, Deerfield and Highland Park.

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School officials said the GPA ranking at the large high school of 4,000 students, can skew some good students achievements.

All but one school board member voted in favor of the proposal. Dist. 204 Trustee George Dougherty called the proposal “excessively rigid” and may hurt students chances of getting into colleges without a way to demonstrate their class rank, the Tribune reported.

"We should try to help and empower students trying to obtain their goals, not restrict them unnecessarily," Dougherty said.


Read the rest of the Chicago Tribune story.



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