During the monthly board meeting on June 2, the Richmond County Board of Education approved the high schools moving to a Latin Honor System and eliminating the titles “valedictorian and salutatorian” effective with school year 2019-2020. The COVID-19 crisis made the competitive guidelines for selecting valedictorian/salutatorian even more difficult because of the inequities that arose from the state-wide grading policy.

Under the Latin system, high-performing graduates can earn cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude distinctions, depending on the quality of their GPA. Currently, there are only fractional differences in GPA between the student ranked #1 and the student ranked #30 at Richmond Senior and Richmond Early College. Moving to this honor system will recognize those students maintaining the highest GPA and shifts the focus of students’ course selection from quality points to programs of study that are aligned with their post-secondary goals.