{"id":286,"date":"2003-05-02T14:42:16","date_gmt":"2003-05-02T19:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=286"},"modified":"2003-05-02T14:42:16","modified_gmt":"2003-05-02T19:42:16","slug":"is-this-really-something-to-fight-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/?p=286","title":{"rendered":"Is This Really Something To Fight About?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Girl sues to be lone valedictorian.<\/a><\/p>\n

According to CNN:<\/p>\n

Blair Hornstine’s latest report card had four A-plus grades in five courses. She 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. <\/p>\n

But despite her best-in-her-class grades, her school district wants to name her co-valedictorian with two other students. <\/p>\n

Hornstine, the 18-year-old daughter of a state Superior Court judge, 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. <\/p>\n

She has also filed a notice saying she plans to sue the school 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. <\/p>\n

Her school district looks at the disagreement 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. <\/p>\n

The two other Moorestown High School 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. <\/p>\n

“After reviewing these issues, I was concerned about the fundamental fairness of the academic competition engaged in for the valedictorian and salutatorian awards,” Superintendent Paul Kadri said in a court filing. “The level of competition … had been compromised.” <\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson set a hearing for May 8, and the Moorestown Board of Education planned to consider what to do about the situation at a May 12 meeting. <\/p>\n

Graduation is June 19. <\/p>\n

Hornstine, who said she plans to become a lawyer, is not the first student to sue over the right to be valedictorian of a high school class. <\/p>\n

In the last year alone, judges have been asked to consider similar cases in Ohio, Washington and Michigan. In two of the cases, students who wanted to be included as co-valedictorians were allowed by judges to be included. The third case, in Michigan, involves a student who wanted an A changed to an A+ so he would be more likely to be valedictorian. <\/b><\/p>\n

Maybe it’s just me but… is this really so life-threatening that you have a federal judge intervene??? This kid is spoiled! I mean… she thinks “being forced to share with students with lesser grades would detract from what she has accomplished” and she’s suing the school district in state court for millions for humiliation. The school district is being a little strange in saying that they need to level the playing field because this girl didn’t have to take gym (thus having a GPA that is a little more skewed because of less classes etc.) but she also has an immune deficiency and can’t take gym.<\/p>\n

As far as detracting from her accomplishments, she’s got a nearly perfect SAT score, she has 5 of the most prestigious schools in the country vying for her attention, she has a 4.0 — and she’s doing it with her immune deficiency problem. The fact that she is graduating and doing all of this says enough about her abilities and how capable she is. Being co-valedictorian with two other students who might have had just as many difficulties as she did isn’t detracting from anyone’s judgement of her capabilities. She says she wants to be a lawyer — would I really want to hire a lawyer who sues over something as frivilous as this??? I mean… she doesn’t have a leg to stand on because her school isn’t breaking any disability laws and her humiliation is her own swelled ego’s fault — not the school district.<\/p>\n

Granted, her grades are the best in the class, but she also has a different standard. Would she prefer to be disqualified because she didn’t take gym? My high school also didn’t have valedictorians and salutatorians because we had so many people with 4.0’s. (We didn’t weight honors in our GPA’s or give extra points for +’s.) Instead, anyone with a 3.5 or above could audition to give a speech at graduation. I remember that one of our speakers *gasp* had a 3.7 GPA but was still a better speaker than the other two.<\/p>\n

OK… Jen’s nerves are worked. Back to making bread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Girl sues to be lone valedictorian. According to CNN: Blair Hornstine’s latest report card had four A-plus grades in five courses. She scored a 1570 out of 1600 on the SAT and is deciding whether to attend Harvard, Stanford, Duke, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p38xoO-4C","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-filled.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}