Based on research and community input, the School Board of the City of Virginia Beach voted to implement a new Latin Honors System to report graduates' academic achievement, beginning with the Class of 2022.

With this change, the school division will eliminate the reporting of class rank and no longer identify valedictorians or salutatorians for graduating classes. However, this new system closely emulates the way most colleges report academic success.

Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) plans to recognize the following designations based on the student's cumulative grade-point average (GPA) when graduating from high school:

• All graduates earning a 3.0 GPA are designated Honor Graduates (which is the current VBCPS practice for this GPA benchmark)
• All graduates earning a 3.5 GPA are awarded the Cum Laude designation
• All graduates earning a 3.76 GPA are awarded the Magna Cum Laude designation
• All graduates earning a 4.0 GPA are awarded the Summa Cum Laude designation

This change in reporting comes after VBCPS administration was asked by the School Board to investigate an enhanced way to recognize students'achievement in the classroom beyond the traditional class rank.

For years, some members of the community expressed concerns about utilizing class rank. Specifically, students noted that classmates enrolled in International Baccalaureate (IB), academy and advanced academic programs have access to additional weighted courses, which offer the potential for a student to earn greater than a 4.0 for a course, but those courses are not open to all students.

In a survey with students and parents earlier this year, 77 percent of responders supported a change from reporting class rank to using the Latin Honors System.

VBCPS administration, working closely with high school principals, researched alternatives to class rank and brought forward the recommendation of the Latin Honors System for School Board consideration this February.

These changes will take place with the Class of 2022, which will be the incoming freshman class for the 2018-19 school year.

###

Department of Media and Communications, [email protected]

Like us on Facebook || Follow us on Twitter || Follow us on Instagram