They are penalizing her for being smart! It stinks, bigtime.

Lorel

I was valedictorian of my class. That was the year they changed the policy so that the valedictorian did NOT speak at graduation. There was a class speaker voted on by the class only. I still have no idea why they made that rule and I have always wondered if I should have taken it personally. I'm thinking I probably don't want to know.....

LOL acs!!!! I'm sure it had nothing to do with you!!!

Now if they changed the policy back the next year.......

You know, I didn't go to graduation the next year and I never tried to find out who the speakers were. I just didn't want to know! I can tell you that in my two years on the debate team I never won a single debate and had a tendency to burst into uncontrollable giggles. Perhaps the teachers were just trying to spare everyone from the embarrassment of having to watch me collapse on stage in hysterics.

My daughter's high school still ranks students (she is no. 1 of junior class of about 400). But they don't call the no. 1 valedictorian any more. In addition, the valedictorian does not speak at graduation. Instead, anyone can apply to speak. Apparently, a student suicide which may or may not have any thing to do with ranking freaked the school district out.

DD complained once or twice because she worked really hard to get to this point. But it does not seem to bother her that much. I think she is so ready to leave HS behind.

To us, whether she is called valedictorian makes absolute no difference. But some scholarships are only given to valedictorian. For example, a student can get a full ride from Dominican U of California if he has an official title of "valedictorian". In that case, the school district is doing a dis-service to its students.

maybe I'm in a state of panic because I remember the fear I felt about having to speak at graduation LOL on the policy shift at your HS, acs. I would have been totally fine with that.

My HS must have been weird. Everyone with a 4.0 (yeah, didn't go any higher than that in those days) was called a valedictorian and had to speak at graduation. My class was super-weird, there were 7 of us (only two of whom took any classes *not* on the top academic track). Sounds like grade-inflation, but was really just competition that started in 7th and kept going. Never happened at that school before or since.

To answer EandCmom's OT q: state of panic is mostly due to end of the school year and having taken on too many responsibilities in too many places. At least the number of obligations is reduced with each day, but the panic is holding steady.

Well, if you makes you feel any better, it does seem like an awful lot of pressure.
The valedictorian at our high school was just asked to return his medal because he was caught plagarizing his speech.

Yikes! Man, just write a crappy "As we move forward into the future" speech, for goodness sake! Don't plagiarize something so...unimportant!

(Not that plagiarizing important stuff is okay. But at least that makes sense to me!)

I have to admit that I kind of see the school's point too. If they gave her the scholarship and title, the other person may have complained as well. Time to rewrite the policy!!

In my school, the valedictorian was chosen by the teachers and the kids and was based both on academics and involvement in school programs.

I never wanted to be valedictorian since I fear public speaking - it also never occured to me that it mattered.

Our HS (100 years ago) didn't weight its valedictorian selection. That was close to 20 year ago (ok not 100) and it didn't personally impact me and I'm still mad that the kid who had his own math class the last two years wasn't my class valedictorian over a well-graded but lesser challenged student. oh well.