The Montgomery County School Board voted unanimously to replace its current class-ranking system in favor of a tiered system in an effort to curb the measures students take to get atop the list.
School officials have previously stated that many students have been overloading their schedule in an effort to increase grade-point averages, often to the detriment of the student’s actual learning.
Students often take as many dual-enrollment classes as possible to get the weighted “A,” which counts as a 5.0 rather than the more traditional 4.0.
Officials said that many of the kids were missing out on a variety of classes, including career and technical education classes, because a 4.0 actually could hurt a student’s GPA.
The board is hoping that the policy change will help curb this grade-focused decision-making. With the change, a curriculum can be built that will achieve a student’s post-graduation goals (college, technical school, etc…) while also allowing classes that pique the student’s interests.
The new system gets rid of the valedictorian and salutatorian distinctions and replaces it with:
Distinguished Scholar: GPA of 4.0 and Above
Scholar: GPA of 3.80 – 3.99
Honor Graduate: GPA of 3.60 – 3.79
School officials also noted that colleges do not look at class rankings nearly as much as the used to, but if a school does require class rank as part of its admission process, MCPS will still be able to provide that information.
It was also noted that students who a go above and beyond will be recognized for their accolades at events like graduation.
Officials did not make it clear how students who speak at graduation will be chosen, but said that the tradition will continue.
The new ranking system will be implemented for the upcoming school year.
Board of Supervisors:
The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors recently received an update from Tax Authority Consulting Services on the delinquent real estate tax sale that started in early May.
So far, the Henrico-based firm has collected $16,000 in revenue and hopes to have nearly half of the $526,000-owed in the first year, but TACS representative John Rife said that was only a ballpark figure.
“We will eventually get it all, but it takes time,” he said.
Rife told the supervisors that only properties that are more than two years delinquent are being pursued, and that Treasurer Richard Shelton’s office has done an excellent job minimizing the amount of delinquent revenue in the county.
The board has taken an interest in the office for the better part of a year beginning when in late fall Chairman Chris Tuck proposed looking into consolidating the commissioner of revenue and treasurer’s office into one and removing the positions as elected officials.
The were pushback form the state treasurer’s association and Tuck ultimately decided to drop the issue due to what he said was “misinformation” going around about the process.
More recently, he has been critical of Shelton not taking the county’s banking to bid since 2013, but Shelton has maintained that the 1.5 percent interest that the county receives on its banking is a good percentage and the Richmond-based bank that he uses has been good to the county.
Brad Denardo, president of the National Bank of Blacksburg, recently told the News Messenger that the rate the county was receiving was competitive.
Tuck has also complained that when Shelton last put the county’s banking out to bid in 2013 that it was for a shorter time than usual, thus giving fewer banks the chance to bid.
County spokesperson Jennifer Harris wrote in an email that the banking was put out to bid for just over a month, which she wrote was standard for RFPs that the county puts out.
Tuck had hoped to write a letter to Shelton asking him to put the banking out to bid next year, but withdrew the request once he found out that breaking the contract, that runs through the next few years, could result in the county paying back some or all of the interest that it has accrued over the last few years.
