Black Mississippi student forced to share valedictorian title with white student who had lower GPA

[politicat]

143. As a kid who had to fight a school district on several fronts, I have sympathy.

I had one B, ever. In 6th grade science, because my teacher hated the way I took notes. (I mind-mapped; she wanted TQ2R3R, which is about the most useless note-taking system ever, and is only good if you want students who can regurgitate a textbook and to minimize teacher grading work.)

My first year of high school, I was at a school that offered weighted classes. I took all that were available to me -- english, math, language and social studies, so I pulled a 4.5 coming out of that school year, when my parents moved me to a district that didn't offer weighted GPA.

I continued with two maths, two sciences, one english, one history and an elective, which was one math and one science more than my grade peers were taking, and one full class more than my grade-peers were taking. (I was a non-Mormon in a 99% Mormon community; they all took an hour of "release time" for religious education, and that grade was not supposed to count for their GPA, but amazingly, it did if they were on a team sport and had to have a 2.0 to participate... or for GPA padding in other areas. And funny how often that one WAS weighted.) I was also continuing my language at the local CC, because my school didn't offer it.

I also had a conspiracy-theorist RWNJ babysitting my supposedly AP AmHis class. I learned more about Bo Gritz, the New World Order, the Bircher plan to turn America into a theocracy and gold-bugging than any 14 year old should know, but nothing actually useful for the AP test. (Also, that I, as a gentile, would eventually happily sell myself into his sexual slavery for a can of beans when his ubermensch took over. Not only a CT RWNJ, but a creep, too!) So I had to fight the school board over that, as well as weighting. Oh, and the regular prayer in schools? Yeah, that took several school board meetings and ACLU/FFRF consultation, too.

What I'm saying is that a teacher, school or school board can get away with a lot of malfeasance for a long time if everyone in the district chooses to ignore it. It becomes a missing stair that everyone just learns to step over, until someone with a new perspective comes in and starts pointing out that there's a missing stair! At which point, the person doing the pointing out is the problem, because everyone else is accustomed to it.

Oh... and on my GPA/valedictorian status? Yep, it was mine, by any objective weighted or unweighted standards -- I set the curve in every class (because I was an approval-seeking, grade-grubbing little praise-monkey). But girls were never valedictorians in that school. Ever. No matter what. By then, I was just sick of those people anyway.

My guess is that Mom is seeing a real problem.