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Mississippi school under fire for changing class ranking after two Black female students chosen as valedictorian and salutatorian

DOS_patos

DOS_patos

Unverified Legion of Trill member


A Mississippi high school is facing backlash for changing its class ranking system after it announced that it named two Black female students as valedictorian and salutatorian for the Class of 2021, according to Baller Alert.

The West Point Consolidated School District named Ikeria Washington as valedictorian and Layla Temple as salutatorian on May 24, recognizing their academic achievements.

However, on Thursday, the school wrote that it recognizes students with both the highest Quality Point Average (QPA) and Grade Point Average (GPA). Washington and Temple have the two highest QPAs, while two other students had the highest GPAs, resulting in four students being recognized by the school.

“The two students with the highest QPA are Ikeria Washington and Layla Temple. The students with the highest GPA are Dominic Borgioli and Emma Berry,” the school reportedly wrote in a Facebook post before deleting it. The WPCSD feels it necessary to recognize four seniors at graduation.”

A former West Point High School student tweeted last week about the controversy, saying, “So my high school had a black valedictorian and Salutatorian AND THEY WERE FEMALES !! and now since a white person was mad about it,” she wrote.

Adding,” they decide to call the girls back and let them know that it will now be two valedictorians and salutatorians. This is wrong!”




The school district issued a statement clarifying their stance, saying that the methods to determine a valedictorian and salutatorian were outlined in the handbook, according to WCBI News.

“We apologize for any confusion and problems this has caused. The school district takes full responsibility for this misunderstanding,” the school district said.
 
This seems kinda weird. I've never heard of a QPA. Valedictorians and salutatorians were always the people with the highest GPA. The question here is how did the school do it before. If they always used QPA and then decided to use GPA too because they got two black girls in the high spots, that's fucked up. If they normally use GPA but chose QPA this time because they wanted two black girls in the top spot to seem woke, and then decided to include the people with the highest GPA to save face after being called out, then that was just dumb maneuvering on their part.
 
The Lonious Monk said:
This seems kinda weird. I've never heard of a QPA. Valedictorians and salutatorians were always the people with the highest GPA. The question here is how did the school do it before. If they always used QPA and then decided to use GPA too because they got two black girls in the high spots, that's fucked up. If they normally use GPA but chose QPA this time because they wanted two black girls in the top spot to seem woke, and then decided to include the people with the highest GPA to save face after being called out, then that was just dumb maneuvering on their part.
Click to expand...

I always thought it was GPA too.
 
What exactly is qpa? People with kids, are your kids using that scale? All through out my school life, it was always GPA.
 
loud-ninja said:
What exactly is qpa? People with kids, are your kids using that scale? All through out my school life, it was always GPA.
Click to expand...
Google says:

Students' quality point average (QPA) is the same as a GPA. The QPA is calculated by dividing the total number of credit hours attempted in classes with A–F letter grades into the total number of quality points earned.
 
RozayTabernacle said:
Google says:

Students' quality point average (QPA) is the same as a GPA. The QPA is calculated by dividing the total number of credit hours attempted in classes with A–F letter grades into the total number of quality points earned.
Click to expand...
I did what is generally a pet peeve of mine. Asking a question on the internet that I can search myself using the same internet, smh. Thanks though.
 
RozayTabernacle said:
Google says:

Students' quality point average (QPA) is the same as a GPA. The QPA is calculated by dividing the total number of credit hours attempted in classes with A–F letter grades into the total number of quality points earned.
Click to expand...

This can't be true given that the school had different top students based on QPA vs GPA.

Here's a more descriptive source:

classroom.synonym.com

What Is the Difference Between QPA and GPA? | Synonym

Schools use grade point average, or GPA, of students to represent grades the student’s earned in classes. They also use a quality point average, or QPA, system, which multiplies the student’s GPA by a specific multiplier. Colleges determine the multiplier by the number of credit hours per class.
classroom.synonym.com classroom.synonym.com

In most cases, the GPA is just the QPA divided by the total hours taken. However, if a student takes honors classes, the QPA weighs those classes higher than other classes. That's how a QPA can differ from a GPA.

So it seems like in the case of this school, the two students with the better GPAs had better grades overall (e.g., all As vs 1 B and the rest As), but the two students with the better QPAs took harder classes so while their grades may have been slightly lower they were valued more.

Like I said before, it depends on how the school was selecting its top spots before. Based on the source, QPA is typically something that colleges use to assess students coming out of high school, so it might not be something that the high school itself used previously.
 
They use QPA on transcripts in college, too. I believe they take the the Grade of that class and multiply it by 3. So the QPA scale shakes out as this for each class:

A - 4.00 GPA x 3 = 12.00 QPA
B - 3.00 GPA x 3 = 9.00 QPA
C - 2.00 GPA x 3 = 6.00 QPA
D - 1.00 GPA x 3 = 3.00 QPA

Then this is use to determine the Cumulative GPA, taking your total QPA / Points by your GPA hours = Cum GPA.
 
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