ROGERS — There will be no class rank for 2017 graduates of Rogers schools.
Beginning with the class of 2017 students can qualify for three levels of honors graduation through completing graduation requirements; two levels of a foreign language; maintaining a minimum 3.3, 3.75 or 4.0 grade point average; taking two, four or five Advanced Placement classes; and earning 92, 105 or 112 quality points.
Current freshmen, sophomores and juniors will still be under class rank rules when they return for fall.
Twin policies governing the graduating classes of 2013 through 2016 and the class of 2017 and beyond were approved Tuesday during the Rogers School Board meeting.
At A Glance
Board Action
Rogers’ School Board met Tuesday and approved:
• An organizational chart for top administrators
• A revision to concurrent credit guidelines
• Guidelines upping rental fees for district facilities
• Revisions to school choice policy
• Clarifications on unexcused absences
• Policy allowing transfer of international kindergarten students
• Policy allowing home-schooled students to participate in clubs and sports overseen by the Arkansas Activities Association
• A 10-cent increase to school lunches
Source: Staff Report
For current high school students the only change will be for those enrolled in special education or alternative classes and English as a second language classes. Under the old system those classes didn’t accrue quality points. Now they can petition for those classes to count toward honors graduation and for a class rank.
No student will be shortchanged by the new rules, said Robert Moore, principal at Rogers High School and incoming assistant superintendent for secondary education.
Typically adding a newly ranked students would push others down the line. To fix this, a student who petitions will be assigned a rank, but will not bump the student already there. The two will share the rank, Moore said.
“No one would be displaced,” Moore said.
The policy also was edited so concurrent credit classes, which by law account for a full instead of half credit, will play the same way into the ranking system for current students.
This year’s incoming freshmen will not be ranked.
“It’s not me against you any more. It’s me against the bar,” Moore said.
Board members asked if students at Rogers New Technology High School will use the same graduation system. Superintendent Janie Darr said they will. While the new school will offer fewer Advanced Placement classes required in the honors ranking system, there will be enough, administrators said.
Board members asked Moore if dropping a class rank will handicap students applying for prestigious schools or scholarships, such as the Governor’s Distinguished Scholars program. The state lists class rank weighted as 10 percent of the decision-factor in the scholarship.
Class rank does play a part in the decision, Moore said, but not the ranking awarded by the school. Arkansas’ universal application doesn’t ask a student’s grade point average, but pulls that data from school records reported to the state. It also calculates student rank based on those records, he said.
The board struck language that referenced the state class ranking from the policy before approving it.
“It almost seems like we have a top secret class rank,” Curtis Clements, board member, said of the policy before it’s revision.
High school classes, those with a course number 4000 or higher, count in the state calculation of grade point average.
Sterling Wilson, a board member, asked administrators to make the idea clear to parents the grade point average for state scholarships begins in middle school if a student takes advanced classes. Those classes don’t count for quality points, but the state requires them to appear on a student’s high school transcript, Moore said.
Board members also discussed providing class rank based on grade point average upon student request, but voted for the no-rank policy.
Old quality point exclusions are lifted under the new policy.
Special education, alternative school, English as a Second Language and concurrent credit classes will all count toward quality points. Students can also take classes outside the traditional school day and those grades will enter the quality point calculation.
“It actually gives them a reward for all the work that they do,” Moore said.