As it stands, senior students with the top 10 grade averages at Boothbay Region High School walk with ribbons at graduation. Many high schools across America celebrate their highest achievers in this way. However, BRHS top 10 student Page Brown points out the issues with this system in a video that was presented to the CSD School Committee at its last meeting of the school year.

Brown made the video as part of “Champions for Change,” a unit in Mark Gorey’s advanced placement language and composition class.

“I feel like the top 10 is not an accurate representation of student success and that another system could effectively solve this misrepresentation,” Brown says in her video. “With our dwindling school population, having 10 students out of 30 to 40 is foolish.”

According to Brown, the current honors system, which once offered healthy competition with plenty of students, now encourages the type of rivalry that takes the focus off learning and the betterment of the self and others. Students who want to challenge themselves by taking AP classes or demanding electives in order to expand their learning potential could be punished if they do not receive the marks they would in a standard class, according to Brown.

Brown proposes a new system with two tiers: Students with a 3.2–3.8 grade point average will get a gold cord to sport at graduation, as honors students. Students with a 3.9 or higher will get a blue and gold cord, representing distinctive honors. As proposed, the honorees could still be featured in the newspaper and could still attend honors conferences.

“I think this is a reasonable and innovative proposal,” said Brown. “However, this will still respect and carry on the traditional values of the Boothbay region. I really hope the school board takes it into consideration, as I truly think switching to honors-based graduation will allow BRHS to properly adjust to our shrinking class sizes and will make our school become a more enjoyable atmosphere.”