D211 Academic Scholars to Increase with New Criteria

No longer will Township High School District 211’s recognition of academic scholars be limited to graduating seniors who rank in the top 25 of their class based upon either weighted or unweighted grade point averages after seven semesters.

In at least one D211 school, sixty graduating seniors would have received the award for their outstanding academic achievements during their high school careers if new criteria been in place.

When , beginning with the Class of 2013 it mandated a change to how academic scholars would be selected for each high school. 

A proposed new policy presented to the Board last week states academic scholars will be defined as “graduating seniors who have a minimum 3.90 regular grade point average or a minimum 4.70 weighted grade point at the culmination of the seventh semester.”

In the process of coming up with new criteria, the administration worked with student services directors at each of the schools to determine how many students over the past several years would have been recognized based on different criteria. 

D211 Superintendent Nancy Robb said “in some schools it is as many as 60 and others it is as low as 18 . . . So every school is a little bit different but obviously we had to make it (the criteria) the same across the district.”

Board member Anna Klimkowicz expressed concern that parents may be surprised with a lower number of students receiving the award at some of the schools.

However Board President Robert LeFevre thought it was not necessarily a certainty that fewer students would receive the award.  “In fact you have a greater opportunity to have more students do it because you don’t norm the data. You could have 100% achieve this. If you norm reference this, you only have a fixed number,” said LeFevre.

The Board is expected to vote on the new policy at its Apr. 26 meeting. 

Academic Scholars for the Class of 2012 who rank in the top 25 of their class will be named and recognized later this spring.