WEST POINT HIGH SCHOOL GRADES CALCULATION CAUSES A SALUTATORIAN MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Two Black students were named valedictorian and salutatorian for West Point High School. But after the parents of two white students claimed a grade calculation error, the Mississippi school added their children as co-valedictorian and co-salutatorian.

It happens that black kids took the advanced placement & dual credit courses, White kids took the easier classes. White kids' parents wanted their darlings' grades in the easier classes to be weighted the same as grades in the advanced classes. It look like a systemic racism in education.

Personally, I have no problem with the move if there was a legitimate grade calculation error. If the story’s right, the school used the wrong calculation, but then let the wrongly honored pair share the honors anyway.

So why are people acting like they are aggrieved parties?  They wound up with honors they would not have gotten without the error. That’s a windfall.

There were different neans of  calculation between student/ parent handbooks and a district  wide policy. McDonald and other school officials admit the policy is unclear and needs to be better defined, but in the case of the four students, the damage had already been done.