Is ‘class rank’ harmful? Why some NC families want it taken off school transcripts.
Some families are lobbying Wake County and state education leaders to stop listing class rank on high school transcripts that are used to apply for scholarships and college admission.
A group of parents and students say that using class rank puts students at a disadvantage in highly competitive high schools, a problem they argue has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This group wants to at least allow students to not include class ranks in transcripts submitted on applications for scholarships and for admission to private colleges and out-of-state universities.
“Class Rank is harmful and We request that it be removed,” Shonda N. Devereaux, the parent of a junior at Green Level High School in Cary, wrote in comments submitted for this week’s Wake County school board meeting. “Let the students of WCPSS be evaluated on their academic performance in high school, not on a metric disconnected from the grades they earned in their classes.”
But both the Wake County school system and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction say state law requires them to include class rank.
“DPI and the local public school districts/schools must include class rank on any transcript going to any institution of higher learning,” Blair Rhoades, a DPI spokeswoman, said in an email. “This mandatory statute does not distinguish or allow DPI to distinguish between or provide different transcripts to state versus private institutions of higher learning or to in-state versus out-of-state institutions.”
‘Unhealthy’ academic competition
Concerns about the high level of competition in Wake County high schools has been an issue for years.
In 2016, the Wake County school board voted to end the use of valedictorians and salutatorians — titles that go to the seniors with the two highest grade-point averages. Those titles were replaced with the Latin honors system.
Now seniors with a weighted GPA of 3.75 to 3.99 earn cum laude honors. Seniors with a GPA of 4.0 and 4.249 earn magna cum laude honors. Seniors with a GPA of 4.25 and above get summa cum laude honors.
At the time, school leaders said the competition to become valedictorian and salutatorian had become “toxic” and “unhealthy,” with students picking classes just to get the highest GPA as opposed to taking courses that interested them.
Many other North Carolina school districts have also gone on to replace the use of valedictorians and salutatorians with Latin honors designations.
But according to an online petition and the website stopclassrank.com, that “unhealthy” competition still remains because class rank wasn’t eliminated.
For instance, Ruth Willenborg, the parent of a Green Level High student, told the Wake school board this week that 41% of the school’s juniors are classified as academically and intellectually gifted.
“Summa cum lade, magna cum laude students are required to enter ranks in the bottom 50% (on college applications),” Willenborg said at this week’s school board meeting. “This is harmful.”
COVID-19 academic inequities
The group that wants class rank eliminated say the inequity in the system was made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When coronavirus first struck, all of North Carolina’s K-12 schools were required to be closed for in-person instruction from mid-March 2020 through the end of that school year.
As a result, the State Board of Education approved a temporary policy change where high school freshmen, sophomores and juniors could use their numerical grade as of March 13, 2020 as their final grade for spring courses. Students could also take a PC19 or WC19 grade — showing they passed or withdrew from a class — which wouldn’t count on their GPA.
Class rank is based on weighted GPA, with students getting more credit if they have a high grade in an Honors or Advanced Placement class than in “academic” classes.
Green Level High families say some students opted not to take the numerical grades in academic classes for the spring 2020 semester. This artificially raised their weighted GPA to improve their class rank.
The families say the situation worsened for the first half of the 2020-21 school year, when Wake County operated high schools on a rotation of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of remote learning. Due to the rotation, not every student was able to get into the advanced courses they wanted.
Willenborg said it has made class ranks unfair and inaccurate.
“You guys are intentionally printing useless and damaging data,” Willenborg told the board. “You are deliberately harming the students of Wake County by not addressing these issues. Please get the policies fixed at whatever level you need to.
“Our kids need to be able to compete for admissions and scholarships based on their in-class performance.”
Proposal to not use class rank
The Green Level families point to how the state statute requiring class ranks on high school transcripts is in the section covering the UNC System Board of Governors.
“Wake County claims state law prohibits you from removing class rank,” Willenborg said. “It does not.”
The families are proposing:
▪ Class of 2023 (current high school juniors) gets the option to remove class rank from transcripts sent to out-of-state and private universities and the option not to self-report class rank for scholarship applications.
▪ Class of 2024 and beyond get the option not to have class rank listed on any transcripts with Latin honors designations added in its place. The group acknowledges that it will take state legislation to make that change.
Crystal Reardon, Wake’s director of school counseling, said the district has told the Green Level families that they must follow a state board policy that requires all transcripts to include class rank. She said school districts don’t have the ability, procedurally or technically, to remove class rank.
“When we moved to the Latin Honors System, we requested from NCDPI that our transcripts include a percentile rank rather than a numeric rank, and we were told that the transcript standards are governed by SBE policy based on the standard method devised by the UNC Board of Governors and the NC Community College System, which does not currently include percentile rank nor elimination of class rank,” Reardon said in an email.
At least some Green Level families recognize that the issue may be out of Wake’s hands.
In her written comments to the Wake school board, Devereaux, the parent, called on the state board to modify its policy on high school transcripts to use Latin honors instead of class rank. Despite what DPI says, Devereaux also maintains that there is no law requiring the state board to print any form of class rank on transcripts sent to out-of-state and private universities.
“Class Rank places NC students at a serious disadvantage, and disqualifies them from both admissions and scholarship opportunities,” Devereaux wrote.
This story was originally published March 18, 2022 at 11:54 AM with the headline "Is ‘class rank’ harmful? Why some NC families want it taken off school transcripts.."
