Westwood continues nonranking plan
Most Westwood High School students will continue to be unranked in the 2018-19 school year, a move that district staff said has created less stress and an equitable learning environment for students.
The school began a pilot program of not ranking students below the top 10 percent in 2017. After a presentation by Area Superintendent Becky Donald at the Round Rock school district board’s June 21 regular meeting, trustees unanimously approved a measure making the program permanent.
Under the nonranking system, a student’s class rank is not automatically reported on their transcript unless they are within the top 10 percent of their class, as required by state law.
Supporters of the nonranking model have said students are more likely to be accepted into colleges and universities they want to attend because they are not beholden to class rank.
The nonranking system was met with resistance by some parents who felt their children would be disadvantaged in college admissions compared to other high schools that included class rankings. But Donald said those concerns were addressed by a parent task force, which gathered feedback and helped incorporate it into an updated policy.
Students can now request a “percentile certificate” be sent to colleges as part of their application process. For example, a certificate may show that a student is within the top 25 percent of the entire student class.
Although Donald admitted it would take another year or two before the district had a thorough understanding of how the program affected student success, she pointed to testimonials from students praising the system and other preliminary data indicating it was trending toward success.
Donald said class rank could be a limiting factor for some students when applying for colleges and scholarships, and that the nonranking system gave those students a better shot at not being overlooked because of their rank.
She referred to a list of colleges and universities where Westwood’s Class of 2018 had been accepted — a list she said came from students who submitted their acceptance letters to the school counselor’s office.
“What is really nice is that students are going where their hearts want them to go — into medical schools, fine arts academies ... Ivy League, in-state, outof-state — it was all represented in that one list,” Donald told trustees.
Another potential indicator of the program’s success was in the number of scholarship dollars Westwood students received in 2018. Donald said Westwood students brought in $16 million in 2018, but just $6 million in 2017 — or a 166 percent increase year to year.
Donald acknowledged, however, that the increase in scholarship amounts could be from school administrators tracking the figures more closely in 2018 than in previous years.