“If there’s a display that implicitly says “these kids did well on the PSATs”, a lot of parents hear “those kids are smart and your kid is a big dummy”.”
DD2 was not among the National Merit Scholars whose pictures were removed. While this may, naturally, lead some cc:ers to conclude that she “is a big dummy”, her mother and I have courageously fought back the tears of shame and humiliation from her lowly 32 ACT score, and found a way to feel proud of her anyway. We console ourselves by rationalizing that all is not lost, and it is not a total disaster. She still has great friends, is still a varsity captain in 2 sports, and will still be heading off to college in the fall. Clearly, it has been a bitter, bitter pill to swallow as we have been forced to repeatedly bear the embarrassment of walking past those pictures of higher-scoring students grinning scornfully down at us from on high, but we have nevertheless after many, many counseling sessions, managed to somehow summon the inner strength to remain publicly stoic in the face of this shame.
At my kids’ high school the principal does a great job of recognizing groups and individuals in his weekly email. He includes sports, academic teams, and fine arts events. At parent orientation for freshman he said he strongly encourages all students to get involved in at least one EC and the school tries to have, support and celebrate a wide variety. I really appreciate that.
Put up the pics of the Val & Sal…of the mathlete winners, or the robotics competitions, or lead in local theater or state honors orchestra, even Model UN national conferences. But PSAT? Not worthy, IMO.
Anecdotal observation: in our school district it is rare that a NMSF is not one of the students in the top couple percent of the class. It’s a small school district (graduating ~ 140) which usually has only a few NMSF’s each year.
^^^ same here. Last year, one girl was Commended and she was also the valedictorian. Same this year. The two, at least in my DD’s school, are rarely independent of each other.
I am surprised because the success of the students (academically, athletically and artistically) is demonstrative of the success of the high school. The private and parochial schools in my area fiercely compete for students to enroll so celebrating these accomplishments, especially the academic accomplishments are a necessary marketing tool. I assume that since public school districts do not have the same concerns, they can make a decision to only focus on sports.
@ucbalumnus, I would argue that the presence or absence of PE has close to no effect on lifetime fitness and health habits. My older two had mandatory PE at their schools (with 2/3 of the kids not trying), large, expensive athletic facilities, a pronounced jock culture, and, like the OP, little recognition for other achievements. Combine that with an unnatural reverence for those big sport athletes and limited resources are stretched. It always comes with a price.
At S2’s school without any athletics, there are still many athletes (but zero cheerleaders, prom kings and queens, associated periphera).Their trophy case, though, is 100% academic and piling up awards rapidly, including #1 school at the state science and engineering fair.
PE is largely a waste of time for competitive athletes and unnecessarily cruel for the nonathletic. With the move away from the old sports, effort has become optional.
ETA: We had to sign photo releases for the kids before each sport season. The option was there to not allow their pictures to be displayed.
The NMS winners come out in a newsletter, along with any other awards students may have won. I think there’s athletic stuff all over the high school, but I wouldn’t know. One of the fun things they do is a hall of fame of graduates going back to the 20s. There are some pretty well known people on that wall!
Opposing anecdote - our public high school averages 3 NMF/year (class sizes avg 375ish), and very few are Vals or Sals. The kids who get NMF are usually in the top 10%, but are pursuing paths that don’t result in the highest weighted GPA*.
Regarding releases, we receive an opt out form with registration materials each year. Turn it in, no pictures or announcements regarding the kid, no matter the variety.
*Honors courses are not weighted, college classes via Youth Options are not weighted - only AP courses are weighted. Almost all AP classes run as full year, 2 credits (block scheduling). None are open to freshman, unless entering high school ready for AP Calc; and only 2 are open to 10th grade. So it is a significant grade boost, but also a significant limiting factor in scheduling, to take more than 1 AP in any year - the Val/Sal are usually those whose interests are AP classes, and often also start high school significantly advanced in math.
My own HS had great PE. If you were on a sports team then that was that, but if not (or when you weren’t), you could choose from classes like badminton (I got good, still am to this day), dance, aerobics (it was the 80s…), running. You just got moving in a fun way (of your choice) 3x a week.
My kids’ school had PE, period, and they rotated through sports. That’s less effective, I think.
Actually @PhilaSkiMom many public schools have a huge focus on marketing. I too live in suburban Philadelphia and our district is heavily marketing to realtors. There has been a nice increase in kids coming back to our district when parents realize they can get an excellent education without paying tuition.
I wish I had the PE classes my kids have at their school.
Adventure ED 1 - Indoor rock climbing.
Adventure ED 2 Rock Climbing and Kayaking
Swimming
Weight Training
Dance - 3 different classes
Fitness Walking
Health
Lifeguard Training
Personal Fitness
Sports Medicine
Team Sports
D1 is not athletic. She took Team Sports and hated it. Took Adventure Ed 1 and liked it so much she signed up for Adventure Ed 2 even though she had completed all her require PE courses.
My kids’ high school has a pretty good selection of PE classes. Tennis, golf, gymnastics, aerobics, swimming, soccer. They also have the typical “block” classes where they do different things.
We have always been given a media release form authorizing the district to release info, or not.
They always put an ad in the paper with NMSF kids. Also one for the AP awards. Our public schools definitely market, especially the magnets and other specialized programs.
I sympathize with OP’s feeling of a double standard of many mainstream US K-12 schools which favor athletic over academic achievements.
I attended a public magnet which did the near complete opposite to the point our HS athletes’ athletic achievements with the exception of students on the tennis, fencing, and swim teams were practically ignored.
Socially, they occupied the same bottom rung of the social hierarchy which would usually be reserved for nerds* in many mainstream US high schools because of a combination of negative stereotyping of athletes and a critical mass of classmates coming from K-8 schools where athletes were privileged and given carte blanche to bully them for being nerds.
However, my HS didn’t have a special place for NMF winners as it wasn’t considered as big of a deal as it would be in many other high schools. Instead, the prioritization of trophies, names, kudos, and sometimes photos of our Math/Debate teams and Westinghouse/Intel Finalist/Semi-finalists.
This prioritization was such that it even overshadowed the val/sal. A factor in why many HS classmates and I thought it was a bit odd one younger classmate was so obsessed with being the val of her HS graduating class to the point of getting an ulcer at 15.
Unless it was accompanied by being part of the Math/Debate teams or becoming a Westinghouse/Intel Finalist/Semi-finalist, few would have cared to pay attention.
As for HS PE experiences, NYC required its high school students to take 4 years of PE. Some of the more interesting PE classes on offer at my HS included square dancing and the highly coveted and open to seniors only…ballroom dancing.
And yes, I took both classes to the horror of my dance teachers and classmates who were my dance partners.
Defined as being passionate about and high achieving academically.
^ Not at all like S’s public magnet school. Monthly newsletter was several pages long and included all types of accomplishments. So the kid who won the math contest, the one who got the touchdown, the lead in the drama production, the student who placed in the Latin competition, etc were all mentioned.
As for NMSF - they were mentioned and also named in the school newspaper. And they were about 30% of the class.
@al2simon wrote “…I think a lot of people view being smart or not smart as a reflection of their worth as an individual…”
And perhaps anxiety-provoking because unlike athletics (except potential pros or Olympians?) parents (and many students) take it as an indicator of future success in life? To hear some talk it’s like a guarantee of success or…doom.
The OP’s account reminds me of my own son’s bitter experience when he was a young kid. During his third grade in elementary school, he won the state scholastic chess championship in K-3 Grade division, a rare feat even for the school that has won district chess championship for 13 years in a row. Thinking that his school would be very proud of him, he waited for some words of praise in the school’s usual morning announcement over the speakers. It never came. Turned out that they don’t announce individual accomplishments – only team accomplishments – because such public acknowledgments of individual accomplishments “hurt the self-esteem of other kids.”
Fast forward to 11th grade in high school. The same kid won the coveted Concertmaster position at a national youth orchestra, and his high school administrators were yawning at best. At the same high school and around the same time, a kid made the round to compete at national (minds you, didn’t win, just “made the round to compete”) in ROCK CLIMBING and the administrators were jumping up and down in joy and wrote a gushing congratulatory words in their monthly newsletter.
Most recently, too, we had a local high school kid, a friend of my son, who won a prestigious national music competition, along with other newsworthy accomplishments, also at a national level. That kid’s impressive accomplishments never made a local newspaper, yet the same newspaper recently made a big deal of some kids who signed on to play volleyball or wrestle at some community college or never heard of state university somewhere. Give me a break. In this nation, it seems any sports at even the lowest level accomplishments are better off than the highest accomplishments in academic or musical accomplishments. So screwed up.
Too bad my son isn’t an editor of the opinion page of the OP’s school newspaper. He would have printed those pictures in the paper and editorialized to keep the pics up on the wall. Once did an opinion survey of students, in which he asked them to “grade” the Principal, the members of the School Board, and others. Almost got the supervising teacher fired, but this kind of muckraking (let’s say “disruptive”) attitude is sometimes needed. Community newspapers, PTO, whatever forum can be used.
