Many High Schools Drop a Graduation Tradition : Best & Brightest: Ventura County Valedictorians.

By JOANNA M. MILLER, KELLY DAVID and MIGUEL HELFT

June 9, 1996 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Joanna M. Miller is a Times staff writer, and Kelly David and Miguel Helft are correspondents

It’s right there in the dictionary under valedictorian: “the one ranking highest in the class in scholarship.”

So why does Simi Valley’s Royal High School list 35 valedictorians for this week’s graduation? And why do Ventura’s two high schools have none?

Intent on recognizing advanced course work, reducing competition or simply relieving pressure on graduating students, high schools across Ventura County have left behind the practice of choosing a single valedictorian.

With a complex matrix of rating systems to compute grade point averages and class rankings, many schools now end up with multiple valedictorians. Others choose to shun the distinction altogether.

Only eight of the county’s 17 comprehensive high schools have a single valedictorian in the Class of 1996. Half of the county’s 70 valedictorians this year come from just one school: Royal High.

“In one sense it celebrates the success of many, and it reduces the competition among students,” said Leslie Crunelle, director of secondary education for the Simi Valley Unified School District, explaining why Royal honors anyone with at least a 4.0 grade point average. But some argue that honoring so many students takes away from the achievement of the school’s top student.

“When you honor multiple students, you make a lot of people happy, but you take away from the one who is really deserving,” said Jack Smith, principal of Ojai’s Nordhoff High School. The school recognizes its top 10 graduates, everyone who achieves a 4.0 grade point average and even those who may be much lower on the scale but have shown the most significant improvement during their senior year.

But when it comes to the title of valedictorian, it is still bestowed upon only one student, Smith said. “That’s the traditional way of doing it and that’s the fair way of doing it,” he said.

And why do some choose to stay away from valedictorians altogether?

“We’re just trying to spread the wealth,” said Ventura High School Principal Henry Robertson.

Ventura Unified recognizes students who achieve perfect marks, but they are not called valedictorians and they do not automatically become the graduation speakers. All students with 3.5 grade-point averages or higher are invited to write speeches and try out to become the commencement speaker. In addition, other students are chosen to sing and perform at graduation.

Some top students at Ventura High are selected for the school’s Hall of Fame. Using a system of weighted grades--advanced placement and honors classes are graded on a 5.0 scale--Ventura High School is honoring two top scholars this year, Kristin Grenfell and Theresa Nguyen, both of whom achieved higher than 4.0 averages.

At rival Buena High School, one or more students are selected for its Hall of Fame based on academics, community service, school service and other criteria that make up a well-rounded student, said Principal Jaime Castellanos. The Class of 1996 honorees will be announced Monday.

The choice of a valedictorian is complicated by the proliferation of advanced placement courses. Students and parents argued that lesser scholars could achieve higher grade-point averages simply by taking easier courses.

So many school districts started grading AP courses on a 5.0 scale, instead of the 4.0 measure used in regular classrooms. That led to rampant grade inflation, often with several students scoring above 4.0.

And that led to more complaints. Hypothetically, a student could receive several Bs in advanced placement courses and still rank higher than a straight A student on the regular track.

Or students who wanted to add an elective outside the college-track AP courses could be penalized, because they could earn no more than four points for the class.

“If students are in leadership or other non-honors classes like debate, they can end up with a lower GPA than students who took all AP classes but did not do anything extra,” said Simi Valley’s Crunelle.

Despite efforts to relieve competition, some students still feel the pressure.

Patrick Reimnitz, a valedictorian at Newbury Park High, said he decided as an eighth-grader that he wanted to be valedictorian and set out to achieve all A’s in a rigorous program of honors and advanced placement courses.

“Last year, I had AP U.S. history, physics and math analysis, and marching band practice was three hours a day,” he said. “I was totally stressing out. There just wasn’t enough time.”

His parents supported but did not pressure him, he said. And he cites the class motto as part of his inspiration as well: “To achieve all that’s possible, we must attempt the impossible; to be as much as we can be, we must dream of being more.”

Patrick, who expects to graduate with a 4.0 average, plans to speak on that theme at graduation.

For students at Royal High, being one of 35 valedictorians is no less an honor--and it may take a little of the pressure off.

“I think it is more special with more than one,” said Brenda Kleidosty, who counts many friends among her fellow valedictorians. “I would hate to have that competition hanging over my head. It would break up a lot of friendships. I don’t think a true valedictorian exists. I don’t think there is any one full all-around person.”

Valerie Esser, who the registrar says will graduate with the highest GPA among the students, said she doesn’t mind sharing the honor.

“I don’t need it,” she said. “I don’t like to be singled out. For me, it is almost embarrassing.”

Regardless of what system a school uses to compute averages--or the number of valedictorians--colleges often look beyond grades.

Both Cal State and University of California admissions officials consider the difficulty of classes as well as outside activities when deciding admissions, they said.

In the Cal State system, any student who has a GPA of 3.0 or above is considered eligible for admission.

“But if students are applying to impacted programs like architecture at San Luis Obispo, or business at Long Beach or physical therapy at Northridge, we go into the secondary criteria,” said Colleen Bentley-Adler, a CSU spokeswoman. “Then we look at the whole picture, work experience, community service, ethnic diversity, geographic location.”

In the UC system, admissions officials consider 4.0 the top grade-point average achievable, spokeswoman Laurie Itow said. Then, they look at the difficulty of the academic program, test scores, special circumstances such as disabilities, income or ethnicity and extracurricular activities.

The 13 valedictorians at Westlake High are headed to prestigious colleges across the country, including Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley and UCLA, said Principal Curt Luft. And although they all earned 4.0 averages, they are also among the most active in the community and the school, Luft said.

“We encourage students to be well-rounded and get involved because just good grades will not get you into a prestigious school,” he said. “We have students holding down part-time jobs, and many doing a lot of volunteer work. They read like a Who’s Who, inside and outside of school.”

Crunelle agreed. “[For colleges,] the overall picture of the student is more important than the GPA,” Crunelle said.

That’s a truism that grates a little on Newbury Park’s Reimnitz. A friend, who earned a lesser grade-point average, was accepted by Stanford University, but Reimnitz was not.

“I kind of feel cheated,” he said. “I’ve been working hard all these years to get grades and it comes down to it, and they don’t take me, they take him because he plays football.”

But Reimnitz, the son of a Lutheran minister, was accepted to University of Southern California, a private school with an $18,000 per year tuition, and granted a half-tuition scholarship. The other half will come from the U.S. Air Force, he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

High School Graduations

Conejo Valley Unified School District

* Newbury Park High School: Friday, 6 p.m.

* Thousand Oaks High Schoo, Thursday, 6 p.m.

* Westlake High School, Thursday, 5 p.m.

Moorpark Unified School District

* Moorpark High School, Thursday, 6 p.m.

Oak Park Unified School District

* Oak Park High School, June 20, 8 p.m.

Ojai Unified School District

* Nordhoff High School, June 19, 6:30 p.m.