Students should exercise their rights
to stand up to districts and be counted
Attention parents: Several local
school districts are withholding information on your children that
you are entitled to by federal law.
Two of the culprits: Lakeland and Yorktown.
Both of these districts claim to have a no-rank policy for graduating
seniors, when in fact they actually do rank students based on their
grade point average (GPA). They just choose to keep the list internally.
However, under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act,
parents and students have the right to inspect and review ALL of the
student's education records.
So if a parent or student feels their particular rank in a class would
be beneficial to put on a college transcript, even if some administrators
and Board of Education members disagree, they are being forced by
Lakeland and Yorktown to go through a freedom of information process
to gain access to what the law clearly states is rightfully theirs.
What are Lakeland and Yorktown trying to hide?
Sure, they'll argue that the majority of school districts in Westchester
County no longer officially rank students, but they fail to reveal
that 87 percent of public high schools nationwide do rank, so, in
essence, districts that don't rank may be putting students at a disadvantage
when college admission offices throughout the country shuffle through
thousands of applications.
Last week, the Lakeland Board of Education unanimously voted to continue
the recommendation of a short-sighted committee to not officially
rank students.
Yet, what the board was really doing, whether it realized it or not,
was approving keeping a secret list, and not informing parents and
students of their right to view the list and find out their child's
ranking.
Instead, Lakeland Director of Guidance Philip Kavanagh, a strong proponent
of the bogus no ranking policy, actually discouraged parents from
pursuing the rank.
Lakeland, Yorktown and any other district that adopts this policy
is taking away the choice of a family in mapping out a child's future.
Rank may be only one small part of a student's transcript, but for
a high-achieving student competing for limited spots in a prestigious
university, it could make a difference. At least a student should
be allowed to make the decision whether to highlight the rank.
In order to determine the valedictorian and salutatorian in a class,
every school district uses a system of some kind, thus a certain amount
of students have to be "ranked" to conclude who is one and
two.
If Lakeland and Yorktown really want to eliminate rankings all together,
then they should get rid of valedictorian and salutatorian as well.
At graduation exercises, let the president and vice president of the
senior class speak.
Currently, only the top two students have the ability to tout their
accomplishments. What about the other students on the high honor roll
who may be only a fraction of a point behind on the GPA list? Why
should they get lost in the shuffle for all their hard work?
At a sparsely attended work session last week, Kavanagh brazenly said
those students who fall just short would be "vaguely identifiable"
under the current secret rankings system. Vaguely identifiable? What
an insult to students-- students who Kavanagh and other decision-makers
in local districts are supposed to be looking out for their best interests.
There is also valuable scholarship money that could be lost by students
in districts that don't rank. In fact, Rutgers University and all
military institutions, for example, won't even look at applications
of students in districts that don't rank. Lakeland maintains in those
situations it would then do a ranking for students. Wouldn't it make
more sense just to revert back to the system that has always existed
and still does (they just choose not to make it public)?
Not every student can be the star pitcher on the baseball team. Not
every student can have the lead role in the play. Not every student
has the capability of devoting three years to researching the life
of an octopus.
But for those students that do stand out in any shape or form, why
should political correctness get in the way of their chosen path to
success?
That's what Lakeland and Yorktown and every other district that has
chosen to withhold records is doing, whether they know it or not.
It's up to parents and students to stand up and be counted, and let
school districts know it's their futures they're messing with.
