GREENFIELD — Greenfield-Central High School administrators have moved forward with adopting a Latin Honors system, which will eventually make valedictorians and salutatorians a thing of the past.
School officials began debating the change earlier this year, and the move was announced in an email sent to parents Monday.
The Latin Honors system honors students with a grade point average of 3.7 or higher with three separate distinctions: summa cum laude for those with a GPA of 4.1 or above; magna cum laude for those with a GPA of 3.9 to 4.09; and cum laude for those with a GPA of 3.7 to 3.89.
“I believe this new system will be a tremendous improvement over what we currently have at the high school,” Principal Jason Cary said.
“Sometimes in education we do things because ‘that’s how we have always done them.’ We are creatures of habit. So for our staff and our community to be willing to explore other options when it comes to class rank, it was a big step,” he said.
The conversation to potentially change the system started when a guest speaker talked to educators and administrators about grading systems.
“Latin Honors was a tiny piece of the conversation, but our teachers immediately loved it. They wanted to know why we weren’t doing this already,” said Cary.
“After we had the green light to explore this idea, we began involving the community to gather their feedback. We had community forums, surveys and a few other ways for our parents and students to ask questions and let us know how they felt. It became pretty apparent that we had far more support for the idea than we had opposition,” he said
“The thing that amazes me is how universally supported this idea was with educators, inside our building and in other districts,” said Cary. “Everyone in our building was supportive of this idea, and I don’t believe we will be the last district in Hancock County to make this change.”
While some high schools and colleges take extracurricular activities and volunteer service into consideration for their Latin Honors systems, Greenfield-Central’s will be based strictly on academics.
In an email to parents, Matt Davis, transition coordinator at Greenfield-Central Junior High School, shared that the Latin Honors system will gradually be phased in over the next few years.
Current seniors in the Class of 2022 will graduate with the current system, which recognizes a valedictorian and salutatorian at the top of the class, as well as the top 10 graduates.
Current juniors and sophomores in the Class of 2023 and 2024 will graduate with both the traditional system and Latin Honors.
Current freshman in the Class of 2025 and all future classes will graduate with the Latin Honors system.
Cary said he’s looking forward to overseeing a smooth transition to the new system over the next few years. “We are very happy with how this process turned out, and we are excited to see how Latin Honors affects the culture of the building,” he said.
