Two years ago we did a study of local high schools and colleges on the value of class rank within our district.

On the recommendation of our high school principal and superintendent, it was concluded that there were better ways to recognize larger groups of students who had high achievement levels during high school based on GPA’s. Colleges look at GPA’s first, student activities, SAT scores and community involvement as more valuable indicators of a student’s character and academic achievement.

Class rank was considered by some but not one of the top determining factors.

The inequity of class rank lies in the inability to compare competing student achievement when you have many schools graduating 500 plus students and many graduating less than 100 students.

Also, some students were faced with the pressure of taking every AP and weighted class available and ignoring many non weighted classes such as the Arts, Fitness class, digital media and other technology classes. They were also forced to take some online cyber class to help their averages. Our counselors have no way of monitoring on who is actually doing the work in these online cyber classes.

I did not receive one complaint 2 years ago when these changes were published in the local newspaper. We let the sophomores and juniors finish high school under the old format of using class rank and having valedictorian. 2025 was the last year for students having a class rank. If necessary we could give colleges a very close idea of where students would rank under our new format.

If our board would decide to reinstate class rankings, it could only begin with this incoming freshmen class and we wouldn’t have another valedictorian until 2029.

I hope this explains a little about why we changed our student achievement awards. But our board will discuss the changes requested.

Bob Renzi
Connellsville School Director