Marilia Tsirikos has worked hard throughout high school to earn high grades. In any other year she’d be recognized as valedictorian or salutatorian of her class. But — as a consequence of the district’s school closures — she could lose out on that honor.
Tsirikos, a senior at John Hay High School, is one of hundreds of students who were impacted by the consolidation of Cleveland’s public high schools from 27 last year down to 14 this year. Some students at merged schools recently learned from their guidance counselors that there would be a single valedictorian and salutatorian for each school.
Some students, like Tsirikos, say that policy is unfair because they had access to fewer advanced classes than their peers. Part of the goal of the mergers was to equalize student opportunities, district leaders said, but this year the consequences have frustrated students who didn’t have opportunities before the mergers.
“I didn’t drop because I worked less than John Hay students,” Tsirikos said during a public comment at an Oct. 27 board meeting.
She spoke alongside Ardae Perry. Another two students submitted written comments to the board to protest the decision. Class rank isn’t only about recognition; it is often used by colleges to calculate merit scholarships, meaning the changes could have financial impacts for some students. At the board meeting, CMSD CEO Warren Morgan said that the district hadn’t yet made a final decision on how class rank would work this year. There are no state laws that restrict the district’s ability to set its own policy for valedictorian and salutatorian honors, and some districts in the state don’t rank students at all anymore.
“We students, especially seniors, started building our brighter futures far before the district made its plans,” Tsirikos said, referring to the “Building Brighter Futures” name the district used for the consolidation plan. “We have spent countless hours working, studying, and leading at our legacy schools, and we should be recognized for our accomplishments.”
Students want CMSD to recognize their pre-merger rank
Typically, in the district, class rank is calculated by first looking at a student’s unweighted grade point average. The district then uses the weighted average to break any ties between students. A weighted grade point average takes into account that Advanced Placement, honors and college-credit classes are more difficult and assigns them 5.0 points instead of 4.0.
Students like Tsirikos are at a disadvantage this year compared to their peers because her previous high school, Campus International, didn’t offer as many of those classes. Cynthia Dalveren, the guidance counselor at John Hay, explained it like this: “It’s mathematically impossible for a Campus International Student to be the valedictorian or salutatorian.”
Nor does the issue only exist at John Hay; students from many merged schools are now competing against each other for class rankings.
Perry, whose class rank hasn’t been impacted by the decisions, told Signal Cleveland that he thinks the district should consider alternatives like finding a way to recognize would-be valedictorians and salutatorians from each merged school at graduation even if it can’t make official changes to their transcripts.
“We’re not asking for you guys to change the GPA number,” Perry said. “We’re not asking y’all to change transcripts. We’re not asking you to do anything of that nature. We’re just basically saying allow us to at least recognize them.”
