[url]http://www.boston.com/dailynews/122/region/A_valedictory_question_Student:.shtml[/url]

A valedictory question: Student asks judge to name her best in class

By Associated Press, 5/2/2003 10:43

MOORESTOWN, N.J. (AP) On Blair L. Hornstine's Feb. 25 report card, she had four A-plus grades in five courses. The Moorestown High School senior scored a 1570 out of 1600 on the SAT and is deciding whether to attend Harvard, Stanford, Duke, Princeton or Cornell all of which have accepted her.

Despite Hornstine's best-in-class grades, her school district wants to name her co-valedictorian with two other students.

Hornstine, 18, has asked a federal judge to intervene, saying that being forced to share with students with lesser grades would detract from what she has accomplished.

Her school district looks at it another way: Because of an immune deficiency, Hornstine is classified as a disabled student and has taken a class load that doesn't include physical education and involves her spending part of her school day studying at home.

The two other seniors with nearly perfect grades could not match her grade-point average, officials said, because classes like gym receive less weight in calculating the GPA.

''After reviewing these issues, I was concerned about the fundamental fairness of the academic competition engaged in for the valedictorian and salutatorian awards,'' Moorestown Schools Superintendent Paul Kadri said in a court filing. ''The level of competition ... had been compromised.''

U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson set a hearing on the issue for Thursday. The Moorestown Board of Education was planning to consider what to do about the situation at a May 12 meeting.

Graduation is June 19.

Hornstine, the daughter of state Superior Court Judge Louis F. Hornstine, filed a notice last month that she also planned to sue the district in state court claiming the dispute has humiliated her. She said she would be asking for $200,000 in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages.

Hornstine is not the first student to sue over the right to be valedictorian of a high school class. In the last year alone, judges have been asked to consider such cases in Ohio, Washington state and Michigan.

The student said she plans to become a lawyer.

She's a bitch for asking, but she shouldn't have to.
There should be one valadicktoria and it should have everything to do with academic superiority.


-HS

I hate overachievers.

[/i]forced to share with students with [b]lesser grades[/b] would detract from what she has accomplished.[/i]

I agree with her.  I wouldn't have filed a lawsuit, but I wouldn't like it if I had the highest GPR and some school administrator decided to change the rules.z

[indignant overachiever] Look at me! I am better than you! What's that? You don't care?!? That's it, I am going to sue you so fast and so hard that a federal judge will [i]make[/i] you care. [/indignant overachiever]

I think it basically comes down to that the other students didn't even have the chance to get the same grades.

example: they got scores of 95/95 she got scores of 100/100. while technically she got a better score, that is only because the potential existed for a better score.

The other students did the best that the school's system would allow.

When it comes down to it, who cares about the freaking valedictorian title?  All these kids are going to the college of their choice.  WHO CARES ABOUT THE HS VALEDICTORIAN TITLE?

Petty bs.

Co valedictorian is still VALEDICTORIAN!  She is a vindictive bitch!

Since her abmition in life is to be a lawyer, I say flunk her and make her repeat high school. [rolleyes]

In HS almost all of my classes were either honors or Advanced Palcement(AP), compared to the rest of the school's populace we were graded on a weighted scale. SHe ought to be bitchslapped repeatedly for suing over this. The other kids did not have the ability to score as high as here because they were forced to take Physical Education and she was not. She was dealt a bad hand, but she needs to suck it the fuck up! Looks like daddy's little girl has been way too spoiled growing up, PLUS she's had an excelent inside track on how the Liberal justice system works thanks to dad. What a bunch of sorry fuckers.

I am the center of my universe.

That figures.


My Salutatorian can kick your Valedictorian's ass!

We would get along great. [:D]

Cripple fight!!

Great.  That's all the world needs, another fucking lawyer.  Especially one with an attitude...

Shakespeare and "Henry the Sixth" comes to mind...

The rules were changed - in HER favor. She got exempted from the gym class requirement which allowed her to have a higher GPA because gym class grades counted for less in the GPA.

She's a [s]bitch[/s] self-centered, spoiled, conceited little [b]cunt[/b].

The School Superintendent was trying to be fair. He wasn't taking anything away from the crybaby. If she is so damn smart she should be able to figure that out. So it follows that she is not so smart after all and should have her immune-deficient ass kicked for acting so stupid; and her old man too.

The quote you have implied, was meant to be rhetorical.

It seems simple to me. Make it so there is an apples to apples comparison, put whatever grade in that she "earned" in P.E. and see who gets the right to the title. Or take out the P.E. grades for everyone in the school and take the average. If she is clearly the top of the heap when the field is truly leveled then let her have the title, otherwise quit screwing over the rest  in the name of being PC.
It's about time for the pendulem to swing back with respect to this PC business. We've had 30 years of incremental increases that always work against just one group and one generation of us sacrificing ourselves because of past injustice is enough. I for one want to see my son and grandson be given an even chance.

Well said as when I am hungry the whole world is hungry,when I hurt the whole world hurts,and when I am Shitfaced the whole world is happy!

 Bob [:D]  [BOOZE]

Great, this is exactly the kind of shit the federal court system needs to be dealing with.  I just love to see my tax dollars at work.  What a waste.

Even worse than that, she's a lawyer in the making.

Too true, too true.  I think the OED has given us the perfect definition of so many lawyer's antics here:




See especially this section of the definition here.  There is little one could add in defining a lawyer:




Although, one could also presume that Shakespeare was being [b][i]allegorical[/b][/i] rather than rhetorical when he wrote those lines...


[banana]

Ya, ya, but I bet she can't out shoot me!  And that's what's really important in life. Right? [8D]