By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The race for class valedictorian and salutatorian may get a little trickier for Great Bend High School students. At Monday's USD 428 Board of Education meeting, GBHS Principal Tim Friess gave a first read of proposed changes to the 2023-24 Program of Studies, which will be voted on next month. Friess explained why several weighted classes would no longer be weighted.
"We didn't know why some of the classes were weighted," he told the board. "We didn't have a true criteria for why this one was weighted, and this one is not. We put a committee together to have criteria set up for weighted classes. That's why you're going to see some of these changes."
For the current school year, GBHS offers 30 weighted classes. In those enriched and advanced courses, grade point averages are bumped from the usual 4.0 for an A grade to 4.25 for each credit earned, or 4.125 for each half credit earned. Ten of those classes will no longer be weighted beginning next year.
Friess said teachers could apply to have their classes weighted. The committee then reviewed the classes against criteria to determine if they would be weighted. Classes that will no longer be weighted include Advanced English II, Spanish III and IV, Spanish for Spanish Speakers III and IV, German III and IV, Computer Concepts & Applications, Advanced Accounting, and Digital Media Design and Production.
The board discussed that some districts in Kansas do not offer any weighted classes, and there is no real distinction of valedictorian or salutatorian by grade point average.
"There are a lot of places, a 4.0 is No. 1, and you're tied for No. 1 if you're the 35th kid," Friess said. "We get a 4.0, and it may be the 19th kid in the class."
One more major change to the Program of Studies will be the addition of a mandatory Computer Science Essentials class. The full-year course will be required for all students to graduate.
"It's one of those, there's such a high demand for the computer-based industry," said Superintendent Khris Thexton. "They're trying to get more students interested in that to increase their desire to go into those, whether it's cyber security, whether it's computer programming, anything that goes underneath that computer-based careers."