Valedictorian is an academic title given to the highest ranked student or students of the graduating class in school. This is determined by students’ grade point average. For the past couple of years there has been no cap for students’ GPAs at the school, but this year a cap was placed by the school district for the GPA at 4.950. This year, there were a total of fifteen seniors at Shadow Ridge High School who reached that goal and were declared valedictorians of the Class of 2025.
The valedictorians of this year are Jerrad Barczyczyn, Kyle Beckstrand, Brendan Carey, Ashley Cottino, Audrey Davis, Olivia DeNafa, Kayla Hardman, Andie Hughes, Chloe Mamaril, Josephine Orolfo, Abraham Pollock, Amberlie Reese, Brandon Saucy, Alicja Wisniewski, and Noah Wong.
From previous years, students might be accustomed to only one valedictorian each year, but this new cap was placed by the district to avoid the competitive and stressful atmosphere of multiple students fighting to be on top.
Counselor Lisa Hebb shares, “I know some kids think that it is not as prestigious if all these people get it. Well, they still earned what they had to earn to reach that goal. People just have different opinions about it.”
A GPA of 4.950 is possible not only by maintaining perfect A’s throughout school, but also by taking honors, advanced placement, or dual enrollment classes to earn bonus points for their GPAs.
Senior Audrey Davis, one of the valedictorians of this year, explains, “Throughout my four years of high school, I have always taken AP and Dual Credit classes because I enjoy challenging myself. I never thought that they would lead me towards becoming a Valedictorian but I am very honored to be a part of a group of so many other of my hardworking classmates.”
There are many perks to becoming a valedictorian as well. Last week, all the valedictorians and the salutatorian got to go to Egg Works for breakfast with the principal. They also get the opportunity to speak at graduation if they want to. The school likes to celebrate these students for their remarkable accomplishment.
“I know it sounds like a lot of people, but if you think about it we have 700 kids who graduated, so for 15 of them to make that is very impressive,” Lisa Hebb comments.
There is also one salutatorian this year, Addason Wing, whose GPA is just barely below the others, but still highly impressive.
