Because the green-eyed monster wants sameness.
There’s absolutely nothing that liberals can’t screw up.
Nah, I’d only settle with a cute little plastic “gold” trophy (2-3” high) made in China (from US Toy!)
Nicely done Dad. And son.
I dunno, I kinda like honoring ALL the high-achievers. This is the one and only time that I would support shared honors.
This is one of those situations where all parties are idiots. The school is full of BLEEP for their participation-trophy policy but the dad is out of control (my opinion).
That's the difference of one child taking one slightly harder course than the rest, or doing one more extra credit than the rest.
One would think that if we're talking about the top three or four performers at the school, then they (of all people) would understand the worthlessness of participation awards, and would rather congratulate the winner for an achievement well-deserved.
-PJ
They should do this in the Olympics!
Pull out those flags in the snow and let everybody come down however they want. Get rid of all the clocks, hurdles, running and skating lanes, put basketball hoops of various heights in different places, and have multiple soccer goals because of varying abilities, etc.
I am a PITA from way back...
And a juice box.
we can’t recognize out highest achievers. Where would that lead.
Hate the GPA plus system.
I was an honors student, but I was also in band. Band “A’s”only counted as 4. In AP and advanced classes “A’s” counted as 5.
There were other classes I took that didn’t have a possible “5”...PE, French, Typing to name a few.
Our Valedictorian and Salutatorian both took ONLY AP and Advanced classes with the exception of mandatory PE. In fact, as I remember it, both girls had absolutely straight “A’s” but the Valedictorian had gotten a medical waiver exempting her from PE. That made the difference.
In my school they had a special banquet to honor the top 5% of the class. Out of 444 in my class, I was...23rd.
Irks me to this day.
At one point he asked the graduating class for a show of hands: "how many of you have had a job?"
It looked to me like about two-thirds of the senior class raised their hand, which was surprising and gratifying. My daughter was one of those with hand raised.
He then said "well, those of you who raised your hands have more useful life experience than I do."
I was ok with Summa Cum Laude but that was 46 years ago. I missed being valedictorian by 0.02 points. I was a little miffed because the valedictorian hadn’t taken any advanced math and science classes. In those days 4.00 was the highest grade you could get for an A, there was no distinction between an A in home ec, art or advanced calculus.
Good for the Dad and the son.The son will always remember that.
That is great and we need to fight against these schools who only want to give out participation trophies.
JoMa
When I was in school, those with a 3.75 or higher GPA were classified as Summa Cum laude, 3.50 to 3.74 was Magna Cum Laude, and 3.25 to 3.49 was Cum Laude. So Valedictorian and Salutatorian weren’t the only high honors, and all those with high achievement were recognized in one of those honored categories. I don’t think those people felt cheated by the fact that there was only one Valedictorian.