Poll Results On D-211's Decision To Eliminate Class Rank

Township High School District 211's generated a strong reaction from Palatine Patch readers.

District 211 voted to eliminate class rank at its meeting last week. Palatine Patch was the first to report the decision. District 211 includes Fremd, Palatine, Schaumburg, Conant and Hoffman Estates hgh schools.

A with the decision garnered 391 votes. The poll is not scientific. The public, according to the poll results, strongly disagreed with the decision with 301 respondents opposed (76 percent) and only 90 (23 percent) supporting it.

Among those commenting on the decision were individuals who identified themselves as District 211 students.

"It's detrimental to students' work ethic to simply allow them to settle for good enough," wrote one commenter. "Life involves competition and hard work."

The student wrote that it was "disheartening for those students that have worked their hardest under the class rank system to find themselves moved from the highly selective category of 'best' to the more general 'good enough'."

Others took to the Palatine Patch Facebook page.

"The best students should be lauded for their hard work and achievement!" wrote Karie Milas Norden. "They set an example for the rest!"

There were supporters of the decision, too. Palatine Patch reader "Scott" said class rank could be misleading: "Perhaps the student with a GPA of 0.1 higher (a meaningless difference) is 100 people ahead of you in class rank. Class rank doesn't look so good when you see this happen."