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

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

MCPS doesn't have valedictorians.

[Anonymous]

MCPS ranks the kids by weighted GPA and this only impacts the top students but it is unfair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS doesn't have valedictorians.

They do have AP credit and bonus grade points for advanced language classes like Spanish 5+ which are only available to kids who took MS language.

[Anonymous]

Who cares!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS ranks the kids by weighted GPA and this only impacts the top students but it is unfair.

LOL time to grow up.

Just stop it's fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS ranks the kids by weighted GPA and this only impacts the top students but it is unfair.

MCPS also doesn't have class rank.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares!

Coming here to say this... You need to land that helicopter, mama.

[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.

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.

[Anonymous]

This is...bizarre. I have a kid in a language immersion program. He can earn a certificate of bilinguality way before graduation and you're saying we should have kept him in English classes only until HS so he could be a valedictorian?

You have a fleet of helicopters to land.

[Anonymous]

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

[Anonymous]

The broader point is that MCPS GPA weighting doesn't make sense for a bunch of reasons-- the biggest is that Honors courses shouldn't be weighted the same as APs. Another is that the online health that many kids take to get ahead isn't even Honors, so kids who try to get ahead that way actually penalize themselves. So OP's post doesn't make sense, but MCPS does have a stupid weighting system overall.

[Anonymous]

1-you can take Honors health over the summer/online (even before the pandemic)
2-MCPS says there is no valedictorian/class rank, but this is patently false. Every HS has a valedictorian and a top 5% and top 10%
3-life is not fair - get over it!

[Anonymous]

Agree that the whole GPS system is irrational. But UMD doesn’t give on scholarships to top ranked students right? (Unlike many states were top ranked get a free ride at state flagship). And I would guess that the private colleges are not looking just at ranking but rather at the whole picture of classes taken? So nothing really flows from the ranking per se, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1-you can take Honors health over the summer/online (even before the pandemic)
2-MCPS says there is no valedictorian/class rank, but this is patently false. Every HS has a valedictorian and a top 5% and top 10%
3-life is not fair - get over it!

Show us a press release with the name of a valedictorian from an MCPS high school. (I’m not holding my breath )

This is a troll post...