FACT: The switch to a Latin Honors System was prompted by students’ and parents’ expressed concerns that students enrolled in select academic programs had access to additional weighted courses that their peers did not.
This lack of access made it mathematically challenging for students who were not enrolled in academy or advanced academic programs to become the valedictorian or salutatorian based on their class rank, even with grade point averages exceeding 4.0. For example, in one school, the highest non-academy student rank was 35. Further, in researching the issues associated with class rank, the school division learned that fewer colleges and universities were using the student’s class rank for evaluating admission status.