ROGERS (KFSM) -- Honoring the top student in each graduating class has been a tradition for high schools across the nation, but many districts in our area are quitting this practice.
This will be the first graduating class from the Rogers to not be ranked.
“We have a 1,000+ seniors graduated from Rogers Public Schools and you start saying this is number one at this high school, this is number one at this high school. Well, that is really statistically insignificant thing when you look at the number of students that are graduating with GPA’s over a 4.0," Charles Lee, assistant superintendent for secondary education said.
Lee said ranking also contributes to what he calls unhealthy competition.
“Students become focused on ways to get that number one ranking instead of focusing on the learning. Schools are about learning and developing a personalized and individualized learning program that’s going to best meet the needs of that student,” he said.
Shreya Majagi, who is graduating with distinguished honors from Rogers High School said she feels eliminating rankings helped her class.
“Doing away with the ranks actually helped to get rid of that competitive atmosphere towards each other, but still kept that competitive atmosphere of moving forward and trying to do more,” Majagi said.
Majagi doesn’t think not being ranked hurt her or any of her classmates getting into colleges. She thinks it actually had the opposite effect.
“Personally, I think it may have had some positive ones just because I’ve seen the amazing schools that all the seniors have gotten into and that’s because they’ve been able to get more involved and do more in the community then worry just about how pretty their report card looks," she said.
Rogers School District does recognize three groups of graduates at the ceremony, distinguished honors, high honors and honors.