In This Issue Friday February 26 2016
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Ice Castles
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Oscar Predictions
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Volume 63 Issue 8
Top of the class Schools expand honors to top ten percent by Kailey Newcome staff reporter
Student companies find success by Kallie Slotvig staff reporter While Mounds View offers a variety of business-oriented courses, “How to Run a Company 101” isn’t one of them. However, this hasn’t stopped many Mounds View students from starting their own businesses. This past December, sophomores Max Janes, Matthew Meloch, Ty Koehn and Levi Scott started their own clothing line, North Star Co. to provide name brand styles at an affordable price. “Max and I were talking about how much clothes like Patagonia, The North Face and Vineyard Vines cost, and we wanted to help people with that problem,” said Meloch. North Star Co.’s $20 long sleeve shirts feature the company logo—white mountains encircled by the company name—and are available in black, gray and white. Customers can order shirts by direct messaging the company at @North_StarCo on Twitter. The boys of North Star Co. are not the only ones at Mounds View who have started their own company. Some other student-run businesses include Galleb and Arima. Created by seniors Furqan Syed, Hassan Lubega and Shihab Ahmed, Galleb is a company dedicated to designing websites and apps. “I have been creating companies for my entire high school career, but I’ve always wanted to create a company in an industry that I’m super passionate about,” said Syed. “[That’s] why I pursued coding and computer science,” said Syed. While Galleb has only been in business for about a month, the company has already won the Congressional App Challenge for one of its iOS apps, “Learning Spanish.” Lastly, Arima, founded by Kofo Mustapha, 11, is a small company that sells embroidered patches, custom pins and buttons, necklaces and stickers. “When I created Arima, I was 14, and I just felt that this would be a great way for me to share what I love doing,” said Mustapha. “I have always loved making handmade gifts for friends, and [I also] felt that this would be a great way for me to make money since I was too young for a job.” Regardless of their product, many founders of studentrun businesses strive to learn real-world skills. “We hope to use the opportunity of entrepreneurship to learn the soft skills that high school can’t always teach like communication, negotiation, doing work on a self-initiated basis,” said Syed.
For more than a century, American high schools have named valedictorians, typically based on who has the highest GPA and who is the “best representative” of the graduating class. That role, however, may soon become a relic of the past. Mounds View has never recognized a valedictorian, and many peer schools are stopping the practice as well. Of the metroarea schools researched, only Roseville Area High School still names a valedictorian. “Students are under a great deal of pressure, and if a school’s true meaning is about learning, there is no need to rank and sort children,” said Principal Jeffery Ridlehoover. Until 2009-2010, Mounds View published class rank and recognized the top ten graduates, based on GPA, at graduation. Class rank was removed with the college application process in mind. “Even with a 3.2 GPA, a student could be number 200 out of 400 students,” said Scott Wiens, dean of post-secondary services. “Not publishing class rank actually helps our students.” In fact, in 2009, only three-tenths of a point separated the top student from the fortieth ranked student.
Mounds View has never had a valedictorian and just recently stopped publishing class rank due to the high level of student achievement. Here are a few statistics to show why Mounds View doesn’t have a valedictorian or class rank.
Approximately
In 2009, only
10%
Valedictorian
a student, typically having the highest academic achievements of the class
of the 2016 senior class has over a 4.0 GPA which equates to
38
The Principal’s Award an award chosen by the principal that looks holistically at the chosen student
3/10
of a point separated the top student from the 40th ranked student
students who receive highest honors
Class of 2015 GPA distribution
Students who earn a... GPA graduate
60
3.333 with honors
57 52
51
50 Number of Students
photo by Eva Hoffman Briana Cline, 10, and Nate Fredrickson, 12, model their North Star Co. apparel.
Other high schools such as Wayzata and Eden Prairie have also dropped class ranking and valedictorian. As more and more high schools around the country discontinue class ranking, a growing number of colleges are no longer asking for it. “There are still some schools, such as selective Ivy Leagues, that request an individual ranking in their application process, but I haven’t been asked for that in seven or eight years,” said Ridlehoover. Often citing a holistic approach, many of these schools have also stated efforts to move beyond the GPA. Instead of honoring a valedictorian or publishing class rank, Mounds View presents the Principal’s Award and recognizes students graduating with Honors, High Honors or Highest Honors. Whereas the last three depend on GPA, the Principal’s Award is directly chosen by Ridlehoover. “I don’t just look at academics. I choose someone who’s in extracurriculars, involved in the community, and has the intangible qualities of being a good person,” said Ridlehoover. While this year’s senior class was able to request adding class rank to their transcript, this practice will be discontinued next year.
40
40
43
41
32
30 19
20 10 0
16
18
5 <1.75
GPA graduate
3.667 with high honors
GPA graduate
highest 4.000 with honors
2.0-2.24 2.5-2.74 3.0-3.24 3.5-3.74 >4.0 3.75-3.99 2.25-2.49 2.75-2.99 3.25-3.49 1.75-1.99
infographic by Eva Hoffman