Warren Twp. drops high school class rank

Valedictorians and salutatorians are going the way of eight-track tapes at Warren Township High School in Gurnee.

Joining high schools such as Stevenson, Antioch and Barrington, Warren District 121 is dropping class rank for graduation recognition. Warren will switch to a system with three honors based on grade-point-average cutoffs.

Warren's Class of 2010 will be the first to not have a valedictorian or salutatorian. The "val" is the top-ranked student, and the "sal" is the student with the second-highest ranking.

In addition, Warren will end recognition of its top 20 students and the upper 10 percent of the graduating class.

"We're looking to move to a collegiate level of recognition," said Chuck Maurer, assistant principal at the O'Plaine Road campus for freshmen and sophomores.

Under the new system, Warren graduates with a grade-point average of 4.4 or higher will be given the highest honor of summa cum laude. Those in the 4.2 to 4.39 range will be designated magna cum laude, with the cum laude honor going to graduates who finished from 3.9 to 4.1.

If the new system were used this year, Warren officials said, there would be 18 summa cum laude, 41 magna cum laude and 66 cum laude graduates.

Sophomore Ellie Olander will experience Warren's new system when she graduates in 2010. She and other sophomores ranked in the top 16 of their class provided feedback on the idea to Warren officials before it was approved by the school board this week.

Olander said she supports the new system because it will provide more recognition opportunities for high-achieving students.

"There are a lot of people open to it, as long as it's kind of selective so it looks better for colleges," Olander said Thursday.

She said students still will need high grades to be summa cum laude, magna cum laude or cum laude.

Maurer said colleges will evaluate District 121 pupils based on their grade-point averages and academic classes taken.

Some schools have reinstated the valedictorian and salutatorian honors. Mundelein High School did so in 2004 after using the grade-point-average-based system for nine years.

Mundelein District 120 spokesman Ron Girard said the switch back to class rank likely was driven by changes in administrative staff. He said the high school still recognizes the cum laude program.