Hallsville ISD voted to recognize two students as the highest-ranking graduates for the Class of 2024 this week after an end-of-year calculation determined the previously-named valedictorian and salutatorian should have been swapped in the rankings.
The Board of Trustees unanimously voted Monday to recognize that the district has two students, Cortlyn Null and Nathan Williams, as the highest-ranking graduates for the Class of 2024.
Superintendent John Martin said it was a scenario that he had never seen in almost 30 years of experience in education.
“Not in my almost 30 years,” said Martin. “I’ve never seen this, like this scenario, ever. I don’t even know if I’ve heard of this scenario before.”
Ranking Issues
At Monday’s meeting, the school board listened to comments from Darren Williams — the father of the previously named valedictorian, Nathan Williams, who is set to attend Texas A&M with several thousands in scholarship funds stemming from the valedictorian ranking.
Williams said the recalculation meant Nathan would not be received what he described as an estimated $13,000 worth of scholarship funding.
Williams expressed how proud he was of his son, as well as Nathan’s twin brother Benjamin, and highlighted each of their achievements throughout their academic career at the district.
“Throughout their four years at Hallsville High School, they managed to juggle travel for golf tournaments with their academics, and that speaks volumes of their academic accomplishments,” said Williams. “HISD is the only district my boys have ever known.”
“We have been blessed by the quality of teachers that we’ve had through the years,” continued Williams.
Williams explained that on May 25, Nathan was introduced at the Hallsville ISD graduation as the valedictorian of the graduating class with a GPA of 5.597. He recalled portions of Nathan’s valedictorian speech he gave, and said his son was extremely intelligent. Williams said that the salutatorian, Cortlyn Null, was introduced at the graduation with a GPA of 5.591.
Williams said that the Texas legislature recognizes all highest-ranking graduate recipients of public schools by giving them a special scholarship, which amounted to one free year of tuition at Texas A&M University for Nathan. He said that while they were traveling to the university to attend a new student conference, they received a phone call from the district and were told that Nathan was not the highest-ranking graduate.
“What happened was, on the way to Texas A&M this past week, to go to our new student conference, while we were driving down there, we got a phone call from the school,” said Williams. “They informed us that Nathan was not in fact the highest-ranking graduate, that there had been a recalculation done.”
Although the policy of the open forum portion of the school board meeting only allotted for three minutes, Williams wrapped his comments by saying he wished he could have the time to read Nathan’s statement, as he was unable to attend due to being on a mission trip in Ecuador.
“He doesn’t want to disparage anybody,” said Williams.
“I just want to present it to you guys so that this will never happen again, and possibly that something can be done for what’s happened in the past and for the future, so that HISD will purposefully act as our hope to spare future classes of this avoidable outcome,” said Williams.
Ranking Calculations
Hallsville High School Principal James Gibson outlined for HISD trustees the district policy which initiated the recalculation.
“For the purpose of determining honors to be conferred during graduation activities, the district shall calculate rank in accordance with the policy administrative regulations that are available by this calculation at the end of the third nine week grading period,” explained Gibson. “So, that was what was done at the third nine weeks, that ended right before Spring Break, and that was for graduation purposes.”
Gibson stated that the policy outlined the valedictorian and salutatorian would be eligible students with the highest and second highest rank, respectively. He said that there were measures for breaking ties, including weighted GPAs after calculation to the third decimal place.
Gibson continued by stating the policy of the district stipulates a calculation of class rank at the end of the school year, which was the policy that was followed to determine that Nathan was not the highest-ranking graduate.
“It says that the district shall calculate class rank for this purpose at the end of the school year,” said Gibson. “That’s the policy we followed to get to the highest-ranking graduate.”
“When we calculate those GPAs, we do one in December, or I say in December after the first semester, so it ends up being in January or February,” continued Gibson. “Then, we do one for all the superlatives, or things we’re recognizing in graduation at the third nine weeks. Then, the highest-ranking graduate is always calculated at the end of the year, the final GPA in rank for all four years of high school.”
Gibson stated that following the HISD graduation, the final calculations were not completed until the week before the regularly held school board meeting on June 17. These final calculations resulted in the change of highest-ranking graduate for the 2024 graduating class.
Members of the school board questioned the process behind the recalculations, as well as the timing with regards to how long it took to identify the change that occurred. Gibson stated that counselors audit the results of each calculation.
“It’s not like once the grades are all entered, boom, it’s done,” said Gibson. “You have to go in and verify grades. When I say audit, they go through transcripts to make sure that they have the correct number of courses.”
Gibson said that he had pushed for second and third checks of all of the calculations, but the GPAs which were used in the graduation ceremony were from the third nine weeks grading period. After the final calculations were completed after graduation, the results had changed.
Although Gibson was unable to state the newly calculated GPAs which resulted in the swap, he said he had not seen a calculation so close in his over 20 years of experience in education.
“I’ve never seen a situation where it flops not once, but twice, and I’ve never seen one this close,” said Gibson.
“It’s as close as it can be, it’s close,” Gibson reiterated.
HISD Trustee Troy Crafton emphasized the usage of the district’s policy before making a motion on the consideration of the highest-ranking graduate for the 2023-24 academic year.
“I hear from both sides, and it was nothing school did, I wanted to make that clear,” said Crafton. “One of the reasons we wanted you back up is to state that it’s a policy, and I’ve been on the board 10 or 11 years now, I’ve never even seen it flip flop.”
“So, at the end of the day, it stated who the valedictorian is now,” said Crafton.
