Commentary by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — It should to be an interesting month at Wellington High School.

Students will be returning with several changes. They will be greeted with eight-period days instead of the standard block schedule. My daughter has already made dire predictions. I’m holding out hope that the transition will go smoothly.

I don’t so much worry about PSQ, i.e. strength and conditioning, because we go to school for academics. I worry more about the science lab classes such as chemistry and the vocational classes especially in agriculture. Is 45 minutes long enough to teach these classes?

Then there is the implementation of the new non-weighted, no-honors class system. USD 353 is going to determine class rank based on requirements with the Kansas Scholars Board of Regents Curriculum. In order to get in the top 10 percent, WHS students must complete four years of English, four years of math, three years of science, three years of social students, and two years of foreign language (see requirements here).

I have already expressed my concerns about the lack of honors classes this year and a need to implement another system soon (see column here).

This week I received an e-mail from a concerned parent who brought up a situation that I hadn’t thought of before. 

Lee (Horn) Trute is the mother of Andrew Horn, who will be a WHS senior this fall. He recently represented Wellington at American Legion Boys State at K-State this summer.

Andrew Horn

Andrew, who also is the son of former Wellington Daily now Weekly News editor Rick Horn, goes into his final high school year with a 3.84 GPA, but because of the new requirements will not be considered in the top 10 percent unless he packs his schedule so tight with hard core classes and gives up FFA for whom he is the president.

Lee writes.

“My son called me upset because he just learned from Mr. (John) Gifford (high school counselor) that he would not be considered in the top 10 percent of his graduation class. Apparently, the school board adopted a policy over the summer that requires students to take the Board of Regents required classes in order to be considered in the top 10 percent of their class. 

The problem is they failed to grandfather current WHS students that already progressed far enough in school that they aren’t capable of meeting these requirements by graduation. Andrew is one of these students. Despite the fact he has a 3.84 GPA, has taken honors classes since his freshman year, and has always performed exceptionally as a student, he can not be in the top 10 percent because he does not have the time to take all of the classes he needs to in order to meet the Board of Regents requirements. 

Apparently, he would have needed to take Chemistry his junior year in order to achieve this. 

This is not fair to him. He has worked very hard and deserves to be recognized in the top 10 percent of his class. He is not happy and I am livid. I look forward to discussing how this situation will be resolved.”

A day later, Trute e-mailed me back again:

“After that I got a message from Gifford saying he had good news. He checked again and he could rearrange Andrew’s schedule so he could fulfill the board of regents requirements after all. The bad news is that Andrew will have no electives, no PSQ, no ag classes, which are required to be in FFA, which he is the president of. Therefore he would have to resign, and he would basically be spending every minute in school in the most difficult classes offered…

… You may think that I am making a big deal of nothing, but I can tell you that when I worked in the guidance office we often had to provide the names of the top 10 percent for scholarship purposes.” 

It’s a dynamic that has placed Mr. Horn in this situation. Here’s a great kid with a bright future placed in a tough situation over circumstances beyond his control. I can’t think of any parent worth his/her salt being happy about this.

I’m not sure if this was an oversight by the Wellington school board or not. But I know there was discussion in 2011 amongst the board of grandfathering these new changes in when it came to GPA and traditional scheduling. It was my understanding that the new GPA requirements would only affect the new freshmen coming in.

I don’t know if that was forgotten about or was deliberately ignored when the board implemented the new Kansas Regent scholastic policy in June.

I spoke with an English teacher over the summer who was as surprised as anyone with the changes implemented. She taught an honors classes and didn’t find out about the change until reading it on this website.

It is becoming more apparent that this new policy was not well thought out when it was passed by the board. It’s an issue that needs to be revisited by the board members and Wellington High School principal Dale Adams.

We all want a better USD 353. But the quest for a greater good should not come at the sacrifice of a few students.