Featured image: At their meeting this week, the DeKalb County Board of Education completely rewrote the formula for calculating student GPA and class ranking.

By Joseph M. Morgan

joseph@southerntorch.com

FORT PAYNE, Ala.—The DeKalb County Board of Education voted earlier this week to make a change to the criteria guidance counselors take into account when calculating the grade point averages (GPAs) and individual class rankings of high school students in DeKalb County.

With the policy change enacted at the DeKalb School Board meeting on Tuesday and a number of graduations held yesterday and today, guidance counselors across the county had as little as two days to scramble to recalculate all students’ grades to determine class rankings.

The fairness of the traditional method and policy for calculating grades was brought into question at the meeting by the mothers of two Ider High School students competing for top honors among their fellow graduating classmates.

Dobbins asked the board to uphold the decision made in April, when the school announced class rankings.

Class rankings for graduating seniors, including valedictorian and salutatorian are determined after calculating students’ 3rd nine weeks grades with rankings announced in April. The 3rd nine weeks grades are the final scores of the school year that are used to calculate GPA and ranking, meaning the final weeks of the school year and end of semester final grades are not used in determining rank.

The point of contention was regarding students involved in dual-enrollment classes, an academic program in which high school students attend core subject classes at a local college and upon completion receive both high school and college credits. The problem brought to the board’s attention was that most colleges do not present 3rd nine weeks grades to the students enrolled in their courses, only a single final grade calculated at the end of the semester. As a result, 3rd nine weeks grades are not included or calculated for courses completed outside of the high school for many students enrolled in college dual enrollment classes—a factor that could result in creating an advantage or disadvantage for students depending on what grades they earn in the college courses.

One of the two mothers that addressed the board, Sherry Dobbins, explained that her son was named Ider’s valedictorian several weeks ago, but his designation as such and the order of the class rankings of a number of Ider’s top students was later brought into question when the school received a complaint about the way student GPAs were tallied.

“They wanted to recalculate using my son’s final grade, not to take away from my son, but potentially changing the rankings of the entire class,” she said. “I requested that not happen as it’s against policy. The policy is that rankings are decided at the third nine weeks of their senior year. My son shouldn’t be punished for taking a dual-enrollment class. No one else in the county uses final grades.”

The second mother to address the board, Donna Bolton, explained that her daughter had been ranked first or second in her class for the entirety of her academic career, but slipped to third as a result of calculations made using a decimal system and a whole number system that Bolton said took her daughter’s average that was a 98 and dropped it to a 97.444.

“Another reason she’s in the position that she’s in is she’s taking an honors English class that she was placed into in the second semester,” Bolton said.

Bolton said she felt her daughter had been discriminated against. She explained that students who took the class during the first semester benefited from the inclusion of the final grade awarded them at the end of the class and first semester. Because her daughter took the class during the spring semester and final course grades were not presented until the end of the school year, (after the 3rd nine weeks cutoff) only half of her English credit was factored into the calculations that determined her final GPA and class ranking.

“I just want her to have a fair shot at something she’s worked so diligently to achieve,” Bolton said. “What’s being called into question today is the policy. It’s why my daughter fell out of the running for valedictorian and salutatorian.”

After hearing the women's perspectives, the board paused the meeting and went into a brief recess to discuss the matter among themselves to determine a solution. When the meeting resumed, Superintendent Hugh Taylor recommended that a policy be adopted in which the top ten students overall would still be ranked based on the final calculations made at the 3rd nine weeks of their senior year.

The difference however would be that valedictorians and salutatorians would be named after also calculating their final grades. According to the recommendation, if a student were to rise in class rank after the recalculation into the first or second ranking in their class, they would be named co-valedictorian or co-salutatorian but students that had already been named in April would not be replaced.

The board approved the motion with only one vote in opposition of the new policy that in binding for this school year only. Taylor said the board will revisit issue before next spring and determine the best way to improve or rework the policy to ensure that each student receives their class ranking based on the same criteria, and that no student is advantaged or disadvantaged by choosing to take honors or dual enrollment courses.

While the literal last-minute policy change only days before graduation no doubt created significant work and stress for each of DeKalb County’s school guidance counselors, the policy change was enacted with enough time to address the concerns raised on behalf of these students before their graduation ceremonies. The number of students who were affected or whose class rankings changed as a result of the new method of calculation was unavailable at press time.