Student urges board to revisit valedictorian calculation; asks for retroactive co-recognition

Katie Prior spoke during public comment on June 11, asking the Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Local Board of Education to review and correct how the district determined valedictorian this year.

Prior, who identified herself as a graduating student and salutatorian, told the board she believes the district did not follow the handbook and that a seven-semester calculation was applied inconsistently: she said yearlong seventh-semester grades were not counted while certain CCP (college-credit plus) seventh-semester grades were included, producing a calculation that she said excluded her straight-A senior-year grades. Prior asked the board to amend diplomas to recognize co-valedictorians for past years where similar calculations might have been used without board approval.

Prior said she raised the issue with district staff (she referred to an email exchange with a counselor) and that the handbook approved May 8 did not contain the more detailed seven-semester caveat she described; she told the board she believes the later addition of a sentence about seventh-semester cumulative calculations was not board-approved and thus not part of the legal handbook. She urged the board to make policies clear and legal and to correct any affected diplomas.

The presiding officer and administration offered to meet with Prior and her family to review records; following public comment, a board member stated she is the student's mother, said she had consulted the Ohio Ethics Commission and would abstain from any discussion or vote that could affect her child.

The board did not take immediate formal action during the meeting; administration and the board signaled willingness to meet with the student, family and counsel to review policy language and relevant records.