MCPS Valedictorians Selections are Unfair Due to Middle School Foreign Language Not Weighted

[Anonymous]

Nope. Our MCPS HS had their award ceremony last night. Valedictorian's GPA announced and they got a rare but completely full ride, including room and board and books, to UMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Our MCPS HS had their award ceremony last night. Valedictorian's GPA announced and they got a rare but completely full ride, including room and board and books, to UMD.

Name the school, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Our MCPS HS had their award ceremony last night. Valedictorian's GPA announced and they got a rare but completely full ride, including room and board and books, to UMD.

I work at UMD. We don’t have merit-only scholarships that cover this much. A person has to qualify for this much aid on financial grounds, even with our merit awards. They are income limited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid has a potential to be Valedictorian, don’t have them take Foreign Language in middle school. I was told about this issue 4 years ago and now 4 years later I am watching it play out in our high school.

Middle school foreign language classes are not weighted at MCPS middle schools so when the advanced students proceed to high school they are literally being penalized with a lower weighted GPA before their first high school class! The student who waits to take Foreign Language in high school or transfers from a private school will always be the Valedictorian at MCPS high schools because in high school the honors foreign language classes are weighted. It’s simply unfair and MCPS needs to correct it already.

Language levels 1 and 2 aren't weighted in high school either. There's no honors until Level 3.

A kid who has 7 levels of language, 5 of them weighted, will have an advantage over a kid who started in 9th and has 4 levels, 2 of them weighted.

I was going to write this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Our MCPS HS had their award ceremony last night. Valedictorian's GPA announced and they got a rare but completely full ride, including room and board and books, to UMD.

I work at UMD. We don’t have merit-only scholarships that cover this much. A person has to qualify for this much aid on financial grounds, even with our merit awards. They are income limited.

Sounds like the Banneker/Key Scholarship to me.

[Anonymous]

MCPS does not have valedictorians.

[Anonymous]

Our school honored the student with the highest GPA (Einstein). I don’t know if she was an official valedictorian, b it it was recognized

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS does not have valedictorians.

Did it ever?

[Anonymous]

Remember - it’s not about actually learning, it’s about an award that no one cares about one year later.

[Anonymous]

Spending high school making choices geared towards becoming valedictorian sounds like a miserable experience and a good way to suck the value out of learning and progressive. They are educating themselves and that includes knowledge and familiarity with languages and their role in the world.

Don't teach your kid to deny their search for knowledge and education in pursuit of getting a number better than another number. Who the heck would even want to hear the speech from that kid?

[Anonymous]

This is absolutely ridiculous. MCPS got rid of "valedictorians" years ago. If one particular school is choosing to honor the senior with the highest GPA, that is school specific and honestly meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This makes no sense the way you are stating it. Levels 1 and 2 of Spanish are not weighted whether taken in MS or HS. There is an honors option in level 3 whether taken in MS or HS. Someone who starts a language in MS and continues it through AP will have more opps for weighted classes in world language than the student who waits until HS to start Spanish classes

Exactly. The only way to avoid would be to be in an elementary immersion program. But seriously it doesn’t matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid has a potential to be Valedictorian, don’t have them take Foreign Language in middle school. I was told about this issue 4 years ago and now 4 years later I am watching it play out in our high school.

Middle school foreign language classes are not weighted at MCPS middle schools so when the advanced students proceed to high school they are literally being penalized with a lower weighted GPA before their first high school class! The student who waits to take Foreign Language in high school or transfers from a private school will always be the Valedictorian at MCPS high schools because in high school the honors foreign language classes are weighted. It’s simply unfair and MCPS needs to correct it already.

Did you know close to 600K people died in the US due to COVID? Get a life and a real problem

[Anonymous]

At QO graduation today there were 49 valedictorians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At QO graduation today there were 49 valedictorians.

Did they call them Valedictorians, or just say they had 4.0 GPAs? There are kids without 4.0 GPAs that have much higher WGPAs than kids with 4.0 GPA.