Williamson County Schools Set To Scrap Class Rank

FRANKLIN, TN — Williamson County Schools may begin phasing out numerical class rank in favor of the so-called Latin system — think "cum laude," "magna cum laude" and "summa cum laude."

The district is examining its current class rank policy, which simply ranks all graduating seniors from highest grade point average to lowest. Instead, the proposal will grant the Latin honorifics, first introduced in the United States at Harvard in 1869 and having since spread nationwide, to students who finish with a 3.75 GPA or higher.

Valedictorians and salutatorians will be determined by GPA, AP exam scores and community service. The proposal calls for eligible students to have 20 hours of community service beyond that which is required by extracurricular activities.

The review of the class rank policy is ongoing and the school board may revise it several times before its implementation. Under the plan, the 2017 graduating class will still be ranked by GPA, with the classes of 2018 and 2019 ranked only within the top 10 percent. For those three graduating classes, valedictorians and salutatorians will continue to be determined by GPA.

"We wanted to make sure we weren't penalizing those who were already taking tracks to reach high-achieving status in their classes," school board member Anne McGraw told The Tennessean. "So we thought to keep it equitable across all the different schools, because they all have different class sizes, it was better to do a percentage than just a number of students," she said.

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