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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 2017
Valedictorians’ days numbered?
Schools rethink class ranking
By CAROLYN
THOMPSON
Associated Press
LANCASTER, N.Y. — At
many American high schools,
the graduation-day tradition
of crowning a valedictorian is
becoming a thing of the past.
The ranking of students
from No. 1 on down, based
on grade-point averages, has
been fading steadily for about
the past decade. In its place are
honors that recognize every-
one who scores at a certain
threshold — using Latin hon-
ors, for example. This year,
one school in Tennessee had 48
valedictorians.
About half of schools
no longer report class rank,
according to the National Asso-
ciation of Secondary School
Principals.
Administrators
worry about the college pros-
pects of students separated by
large differences in class rank
despite small differences in
their GPAs, and view rankings
as obsolete in an era of high
expectations for every student,
association spokesman Bob
Farrace said. There are also
concerns about intense, poten-
tially unhealthy competition
and students letting worries
about rank drive their course
selections.
Cum laude
Among those weighing
a change is Lancaster High
School in suburban Buffalo,
where students are leading an
exploration of replacing vale-
dictorian-salutatorian recog-
nitions with the college-style
Latin honors of summa cum
laude, magna cum laude and
cum laude.
The principal, Cesar Mar-
chioli, said he’s neutral on the
AP Photo/Carolyn Thompson
Daniel Buscaglia, 17, looks through the program from the
previous night’s senior awards banquet at Lancaster High
School in Lancaster, N.Y., earlier this month. Buscaglia’s
101.9 grade point average earned him the honor of valedic-
torian of his graduating class of nearly 500 students, but
at many American high schools, the tradition of ranking
students from No. 1 on down is being replaced by honors
that recognize everyone who scores at a certain threshold.
issue, though he feels for the
11th-ranked student who falls
just short of the recognition
awarded to the top 10 seniors
honored at the annual banquet.
Graduating
Lancaster
senior Connor Carrow, 17, has
pressed for the switch to Latin
honors since his sophomore
year, well before landing just
out of the top 10, at No. 14,
while serving as student union
president and playing varsity
lacrosse and hockey. He said
it’s a better fit with the school’s
collaborative and cooperative
ideals.
“You’re striving for that
(honor) personally, but you’re
not hoping that you’re better
than these other 400 people
next to you,” Carrow said.
The view was somewhat
different from the No. 1 spot
occupied by Carrow’s class-
mate Daniel Buscaglia, who
also played saxophone in sev-
eral performance ensembles
and volunteered in his town’s
youth bureau. While he doesn’t
oppose the change, Buscaglia
expects the competition in high
school, although it was mostly
friendly, will help him at Cor-
nell University in the fall.
Elsewhere,
commenters
have peppered news websites
with disparaging comparisons
to giving “participation tro-
phies” to avoid hurt feelings,
while supporters point out the
often statistically insignifi-
cant differences that separate
students.
Class rank
Rankings still play an
important part in aspects of
the college admissions pro-
cess. There are scholarships for
the top-ranked students, and
the number of top students at
colleges is factored into col-
lege rankings. Class ranks are
also credited with improving
diversity at the University of
Texas, where a law guaranteed
that a school’s top 10 percent
would be accepted into a pub-
lic university.
Colleges are adjusting to
the increasing number of appli-
cations arriving without class
rank, though many applications
still ask for it if available. Even
so, students’ individual grades
and the rigor of the curriculum
they chose tend to weigh more
heavily, said Melanie Gottlieb,
deputy director of the Ameri-
can Association of Collegiate
Registrars and Admissions
Officers.
“More and more schools are
moving toward a more holistic
process. They look deeper into
the transcript,” Gottlieb said.
Wisconsin’s
Elmbrook
School District has for sev-
eral years ranked only the vale-
dictorian and salutatorian, and
only then because the state
awards scholarships to schools’
top two graduates, according to
Assistant Superintendent Dana
Monogue. The change has been
accepted by colleges and com-
munity alike, Monogue said.
“We are encouraged by any
movement that helps students
understand that they’re more
than a score, that they’re more
than a rank,” she said.
48 valedictorians
Tennessee’s
Rutherford
County schools give the vale-
dictorian title to every stu-
dent who meets requirements
that include a 4.0 grade-point
average and at least 12 hon-
ors courses. Its highly ranked
Central Magnet School had 48
valedictorians this year, about a
quarter of its graduating class.
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
The new Yacht Club Apartments under construction on
Astoria’s south side in 2015. A developer has proposed a
32-unit apartment complex near the old Yacht Club offices.
Apartments:
Housing is the
‘monster’ problem
in Astoria right now
Continued from Page 1A
Astoria, like other cit-
ies on the North Coast, has
experienced a housing short-
age. Economists and busi-
ness leaders have pointed
to a lack of rental housing,
in particular, as a barrier
to economic growth. City
councilors have suggested
property near the old Yacht
Club as an option for hous-
ing projects.
Astoria
Community
Development
Director
Kevin Cronin mentioned the
new apartment project at a
City Council work session
Wednesday morning.
The council was discuss-
ing Advance Astoria, a draft
five-year economic devel-
opment strategy, but many
of the topics cycled back to
Astoria’s lack of available
housing, especially low-
er-income and workforce
housing.
Housing is the “monster”
problem in Astoria right now,
Cronin said when asked to
identify obstacles to eco-
nomic development.
Astoria Mayor Arline
LaMear asked if the apart-
ment complex Barnes plans
to build would provide any
low-cost housing.
Cronin said he was told
the apartments would rent at
market rate.
Monument: ‘We hope
to make this happen,
but we also have to be
fiscally responsible’
Continued from Page 1A
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Firefighter Jimmy Huddleston logs information about routine equipment maintenance while on duty at the Seaside Fire
Department. The department plans to narrow suppliers down to two companies in July.
Seaside Fire: Funds will help meet shortfalls
Continued from Page 1A
Ideally, every firefighter in
Seaside will have access to a
pack, with spares, he said. Dan-
iels said he hopes to ultimately
have 45 packs to meet the needs
of a full roster. But even with
the grant funds, “we’re still
probably going to be short,” he
said.
Funds from the May levy
will help meet shortfalls, along
with extra parts, facepieces and
training.
Simulations
The department plans to
narrow suppliers down to two
companies in July, followed
by demonstrations of test
equipment in simulated situ-
ations. Final selection will be
made by a committee of eight
firefighters.
Daniels said he received
grant-writing assistance from
Chief Jeff Golightly of the
Lewis and Clark Fire District,
who won a similar grant last
year. Daniels said he hopes
that other county departments
receive items on their wish lists.
“Everything that we get or
they get benefits our county as
a whole,” he said.
The new grant awarded to the Seaside Fire Department will
upgrade certain components of the safety equipment system.
Quota: States to have one more fishing day upriver
Continued from Page 1A
“The combined catch in
the lower river rose somewhat
more quickly than expected,”
said Ron Roler, a fishery man-
ager for Washington. “We
knew this would be a popular
fishery, and that’s definitely
turned out to be the case.”
In a quick flyover a week
ago Wednesday, observers
counted over 700 boats on the
Lower Columbia River, and
then counted close to 1,000
on Saturday. Trucks and boat
trailers clogged launch areas
in Clatsop County from John
Day to Hammond. Fishery
managers estimate there were
around 12,000 angler trips
total.
It was the first time the
retention fishery had been
open in three years. Fishery
managers had shut it down
in 2014 to give the sturgeon
population a chance rebuild.
This May, however, fishery
managers estimated there
were close to 165,000 legal-
size sturgeon in the Colum-
bia River and announced the
opening of a retention fishery.
Ultimately,
fishermen
were able to fish five of the
scheduled six days.
And anglers who hav-
en’t already met their annual
quota of two sturgeon will
have another chance at the
fish.
The states have also
announced they will open a
one-day sturgeon retention
fishery upriver from Bon-
neville Dam to The Dalles
Dam and on adjacent tributar-
ies June 23. Under that area’s
harvest guidelines, there
are about 144 sturgeon still
available.
groundbreaking event around
the same time. As discus-
sions dragged on last year,
that big hope changed to a
small hope that at least there
could be something new to
announce by the time the fes-
tival arrived.
“Right now I don’t really
have any announcement to
make,” Mathews said. “What
we need to do is we need to
get (the city) to sit down with
us so we can ask what guar-
antees do they want.”
“In one sense, I under-
stand where they are,”
Mathews added. But, he said,
“I’m a little disappointed we
aren’t able to move a little
faster.”
The group was consider-
ing a site off Marine Drive
between 15th and 16th streets
for a potential monument, an
underused area called Peo-
ples Park. At a presentation
last June, Mathews said he
believed the park would be
an ideal location and could
help “fill Astoria’s shortage
of urban plazas,” a shortage
identified in the parks and
recreation comprehensive
plan. He believed there was
community support for the
monument and that a ded-
icated group of volunteers
could maintain the site.
At the time, the Parks and
Recreation Board said the
project was well-planned,
but cautioned against add-
ing new parks, facilities or
services until the department
had addressed other high-
er-priority projects.
Private donations
The heritage association
planned to use private dona-
tions to pay for the monu-
ment’s construction if the
city contributed the land. But
the question of long-term
maintenance costs — and
who would pay — stalled the
project. The association, at
the time, could only commit
to power-washing the mon-
ument twice a year for three
years and promise to help
organize community cleanup
events.
City Councilor Cindy
Price had recommended
looking at corporate sponsors
to help underwrite long-term
maintenance costs for the
monument last November.
At the time, the city sought
sponsors who could agree to
maintain the monument for a
10-year-or-more period.
“We hope to make this
happen, but we also have
to be fiscally responsible,”
LaMear said at the time. “So
let’s figure out a way where
we can do both.”
Now, LaMear says she
still supports the idea of a
Scandinavian monument, but
the association needs to fig-
ure out who would maintain
it.
“The city just doesn’t
have the ability to do that,”
she said.
Few visitors
Peoples Park used to have
a wooden viewing platform
and was maintained through
an agreement with the Asto-
ria Rotary Club. The city
removed the structure in
2015 after the parks main-
tenance team noted that one
of the hand rails had fallen
off and decking boards and
structural supports were rot-
ting. Even before then, the
parks department faced sig-
nificant challenges with the
park, routinely dealing with
illegal drugs, alcohol, gar-
bage and illegal camping on
and underneath the platform.
Now, the park is an empty,
grassy area. Local volun-
teers serve lunch to homeless
and low-income people in a
small parking lot nearby, but
otherwise the park sees few
visitors.