Fair Grove High School strives to do what is best for the students, and the 2017-2018 school year has brought many academic changes. One of the most important being the newly implemented Latin Honor System. The class of 2020 will be the first class to be under only this new system, whereas the classes of 2018 and 2019 will be under both the Latin Honor System and the previous Valedictorian System. High School Principal, Chris Stallings, said, “Several years ago when we switched to the weighted GPA system to make the valedictorian system more competitive we realized that it brought with it some unintended consequences for our highest achieving students. What we saw was that these students were basically being put in a box and were forced to take a direct path of classes in order to have an opportunity for valedictorian status”.

The students working to be honored as valedictorian were pushed into taking all of the upper level classes that Fair Grove offers and were left with no room for classes that interested them or applied to their career field. Being at the top of your class is a great accomplishment but the students were missing out on other classes like art, choir, and shop. “We watched students have to choose between being involved in something that really interested them like Agriculture or throwing that away to ensure they had a chance at valedictorian,” mentioned Mr. Stallings.

Under the Latin Honor System high school students will have more freedom to take classes that they really enjoy. David Oplotnik (10) said “I’m excited to take a weights class every year”.

The criteria for this honor system not only keeps up the academic competitiveness but also allows for more students to be recognized at graduation. This new system will not affect any scholarships or other college academic requirements, “Nearly all colleges utilize the Latin Honor System and very few universities offer any scholarships based on valedictorian. Most scholarships are based on ACT score and being in the top percentage of one’s class,” added Mr. Stallings.