“Feelings”
The honor roll is meant to recognize students who achieve high grades: a 3.7 or higher GPA for a place on the high honor roll or a 3.3-3.6 GPA for the honor roll.
And to celebrate these students, the school has been publishing the honor roll in the school’s Friday email (and before that in the school’s paper version of “Highlights”) for years.
But the school stopped publishing honor-roll students as of spring 2016.
Instead, the school now sends certificates to students who have earned their place on what used to be the public honor roll.
But how can students be truly recognized for their academic achievements if no one even knows they’ve earned a spot on the honor rolls?
It’s because of this that the school should publicize honor-roll winners again.
The honor roll becomes a pointless system if it fails to do what it was created to do: “celebrate good students,” as head of high school Brooke Wells said.
Yet the administration believes that its removal of honor-roll publication is good for high-school students’ morale, since publishing it makes students who didn’t make the lists feel bad.
Well then, why doesn’t the middle school practice this as well?
The middle school still publishes who made honor and high honor roll. And if middle-school students can handle the emotional toll of not making the honor roll, high schoolers should be able to.
Colleges don’t even pay attention to honor roll; rather, they look at grades on students’ transcripts, according to college counselor Jane Bauman.
In other words, the honor roll may not mean very much to begin with, but it means even less when it isn’t publicized for the community.
Sure, a student and their parents will know of the student’s academic achievements when that honor-roll certificate arrives in the mail
But students are missing what really matters: enjoying the recognition that comes with accomplishment.
It’s similar to when sophomore Sophie Naylor was announced to have won first place for her painting at the Crocker Art Museum Youth Art Month, or when it was announced that Chardonnay Needler won gold at Golden Empire for her solo.
And when students accomplish other achievements, they’re announced so these students can be acknowledged for their hard work and excellence.
So why shouldn’t grades be honored the same way?
If the school doesn’t want to return to publishing the honor roll, then why not just scrap it altogether?
Because at this point, the honor roll is little more than a small, disposable piece of paper.
