LAVALLETTE — The Lavallette Elementary School adopted a new set of honor roll criteria for its fifth- through eighth-grade students at the district’s most recent board of education meeting.
According to a letter sent to Lavallette School parents, the former criteria for “first honors” were an “overall average of 93 or better in academic subjects with no grade below 85 and no mark below ‘G’ in special areas;” for “second honors,” criteria were an “overall average of 85 or better in academic subjects with no grade below 80 and no mark below ‘G’ in special areas.”
Under the revised criteria, first honors become “distinguished honor roll” and second honors become “honor roll.” Distinguished honor roll criteria are now an “overall average of 93 or better in academic subjects with no grade below 90 and only one special area grade of ‘G;’ the honor roll criteria are an “overall average of 90 or better in academic subjects with no grade below 85 and only two special area grades of ‘G.’” The remainder of the special area grades must be ‘O’s.
Lavallette School Superintendent/Principal Lisa Gleason told The Ocean Star on Monday that the changes were recommended by a committee of members from the school community.
“We had a committee of seven members; it was made up of teachers, administrators and parents,” she said. “We use an O-G-S-N-U system…that’s just for one area, but we actually have an overall numeric average, too. So (criteria are) a combination of both numerical grade and a categorical grade.”
In the categorical grade system, “O” means “outstanding,” “G” means “good,” “S” means “satisfactory,” “N” means “needs improvement” and “U” means “unsatisfactory.” According to the superintendent, the honor roll provisions of other neighboring intermediate schools were taken into consideration when developing these new criteria.
“The purpose of the committee was to analyze the trends and patterns of our school compared to neighboring middle schools and other counties’ middle schools and their honor roll eligibility practices,” Gleason said. “Ultimately, what we’re looking to do is to ensure that our honor roll is a distinction that promotes outstanding academic success and inspires all of our students to set goals and perform at their highest level.”
“We looked at the percentage of students who were meeting both first honors and second honors, and then looked at our actual student achievement data,” she said. “And we saw a misalignment of that. What that would look like is: if we had a high percentage of first honor students and second honors, that should match up to the percentage of students who were above grade level, and there was a misalignment of those numbers.”
Students taking the high school-level algebra I course will see their grades weighted to consider the advanced coursework. Additionally, Gleason explained that the rising eighth-grade class — the Class of 2025 — will not be affected by the change in their last year at the school.
“Our current eighth-grade students…will be exempt from the new revised criteria and they will use the prior criteria,” she said. “That’s because eighth-grade is the year they begin programming for high school — as early as the fall — and we don’t want to change the goalposts in their final year here.”
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