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No more Top 10 students; new system honors achievements

By
Mavis Fodness

Instead of recognizing only the top ten graduating students in the class based on grades, Luverne High School will name students of distinction based on one of three honor designations.
“The Top Ten was essentially a competition among classmates that focused on outdoing each other,” said Principal Ryan Johnson.
“The new system is a set of criteria that allows all students to reach an achievement level.”
The new honors are still based on GPA.
Students with a GPA of 3.900-4.000 earn a summa cum laude distinction; 3.750-3.899, magna cum laude; and 3.50-3.749, cum laude.
Luverne School Board members approved the change when they adopted the student handbook for 2016-17.
The school’s Faculty Senate also discussed developing a weighted GPA system. Under the weighted system some advanced classes would allow more than a 4.000 to be earned by students.
Johnson said students taking advanced courses are rewarded with potential college credits, and most colleges don’t accept a weighted GPA, often recalculating grades to the non-weighted 4.0 system.
“There is no benefit to change,” he said about using the weighted system.
A dishonesty clause was added to the middle school/high school handbook along with discipline measures.
The clause spells out how incidents of plagiarism would be handled. The clause is proactive and isn’t a result of any local incidents, Johnson said.
Plagiarism, according to the handbook, is using another person’s words, ideas or work without properly citing the source. It can be either intentional or unintentional.
Consequences for academic dishonesty range from a disciplinary warning to lost credit on the assignment and/or class to suspension.
 
In other business, the board members:
•increased lunch prices by 10 cents. Elementary lunches will be $2.75 per meal, $3 for grades 6-12, and $3.80 for adults. All other food service prices stayed the same.
•approved creating an assistant cross country coach position at a salary of $2,082.

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