SOUTH BRUNSWICK — The Board of Education will decide Monday whether to stop ranking high school students, beginning with next year’s senior class.
Board members are expected to approve the measure.
"There will be at least one more meeting at which this will be discussed," board member Marci Abschutz told the handful of parents present at Monday’s workshop meeting.
If approved, the new policy would take effect in the fall. With the change, the high school would no longer disclose a student’s rank to parents. It would calculate it, however, for those colleges which require it or for scholarship applications where it is required.
The board is urging parents to attend Monday’s meeting to speak on the issue before it votes on the change.
South Brunswick High School Principal Thomas Kietrys, who favors the change, said prior to the start of Monday’s workshop, "It will help our students."
During the meeting discussion, Kietrys said that many South Brunswick students "are discriminated against" by colleges because they are not ranked in the top 20 percent of their class.
"Our goal is to expand opportunities for our college-bound students," said Schools Superintendent Sam Stewart. "We are not asking for a vote tonight."
Board members heard two presentations in favor of eliminating the ranking system, one from South Brunswick High School guidance supervisor Pat Leary, and one from Dennis Bye, director of guidance at Holmdel High School in Monmouth County, one of the top-rated schools in the state.
Leary and Bye said they could find no "negatives" to eliminating the traditional ranking of students in the senior class.
Leary, who contacted several colleges to find out if the lack of a class ranking would hurt, said he found that unranked students are not handicapped. "Those students would be admitted," he said.
According to Leary, many of the colleges use ranking as a simple elimination method.
"There are students falling out of range," Leary said. While they meet the other criteria set by the colleges, their position in the class is likely to eliminate them from further consideration.
As an example, he said two fairly competitive colleges set their admittance bar at around the top 25 percent of the class, but require a 3.0 grade-point average.
"Our students are coming in ranked in the top 37 percent," he said. While these students are on an equal footing with other applicants based on other measurements, the 12 percent difference in rank means that some are not even looked at.
"They are automatically discarded," Leary said, hoping that eliminating rankings will get college admissions officials to give these applicants another look.
Bye, a 19-year veteran of the Holmdel school district, described how his district eliminated rankings in 1991. "It is important that the community is behind it," he said, adding that his district studied the issue for a year before ending the practice.
In Holmdel, 88 percent of graduates go on to four-year colleges, according to Bye. Willa Spicer, assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum, said 64 percent of South Brunswick students go on to four-year colleges.
Bye said that with rankings, many students will play "the class-rank game," taking easier classes to increase their ranking within their class.
At Holmdel, the percentage of students getting into more competitive colleges rose an average of about 14 percent after rankings were eliminated, Bye said.
"Rank doesn’t always give you the top student," he said.
Bye said that other area school districts, including West Windsor-Plainsboro and North Brunswick, have also eliminated the rank. "It is a better way for colleges to evaluate students," he said.
South Brunswick board members first looked at the issue last summer, but tabled a final vote until more information could be gathered on how the change would affect students.
According to Leary, eliminating ranking will make colleges look closer at the individual students instead of just at their class ranks.
Parents who attended Monday’s meeting understood why the district is looking at the issue, but still think more information is needed.
One parent, who asked not to be identified, said, before listening to the board presentations, that he was opposed to eliminating the ranking system.
"I think it has a place, but our problem could be grading," he said, explaining that students taking more stringent courses should be given a larger point total for their work.
As it is now, students in advanced placement courses get weighted grades with an extra point added. For example an A in an advanced placement class would earn the student 5 points, whereas an A in a regular class would only earn 4 points.
Spicer said that the extra weighting of those harder courses was studied recently, but may be reviewed again.