NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (WTHR) - Noblesville High School is ditching a graduation tradition all of us have grown up with. It will stop ranking students and naming the class valedictorian and salutatorian.
The changes are aimed at eliminating the academic competition behind earning a diploma.
Noblesville’s plan is to recognize high achieving students, while encouraging them to pursue their own academic interests and needs.
The class of 2017 is among the last naming its top two students and honoring them as valedictorian and salutatorian.
“I love our valedictorian. She worked extremely hard,” said Regan Waston, a graduating senior.
She says she is in the top 10 percent of the class and doesn’t like the changes.
“It hurts the people that work extremely hard, because they don’t get recognized as much,” Watson explained.
In a message to parents, Noblesville High School explained it is eliminating the top-of-the-class honors, as well as the class rankings of individual students "to develop ways of honoring students for meeting an academic standard and not merely for competing academically against their peers."
“I do think we are coddling kids,” Kathy Tardy said.
She’s already put her kids through high school and college.
“We are afraid of getting our kids hurt. To get hurt, for them to experience life, I think we are selling them short. “ she explained.
Supporters of the changes believe if students don’t have to be concerned with their class ranking, they might be encouraged to take more difficult classes, or get involved in extracurricular activities.
Courtney McDonald, a parent with small children, whishes there was a system of measuring how much students improved over four years.
“You know, they started here and in this amount of time, how far were you able to go? How hard did you work? How much did you learn?“ she said.
Noblesville High School will recognize high performing students the way colleges do: with the academic honors of Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, and Summa Cum Laude.
The changes will be phased in. The classes of '18 and '19 will still have valedictorians and salutatorians, but no class rankings beyond that. Today’s freshmen, the class of 2020, will graduate solely with "cum laude" type honors.
Noblesville will be the third Hamilton County high school to eliminate class rankings and valedictorians and salutatorians. Carmel and Westfield Washington Schools made similar changes several years ago.
