5.898 GPA student NOT valedictorian!

Grapevine student with top grades won't be valedictorian

12:27 AM CDT on Thursday, May 29, 2008
By LAURIE FOX / The Dallas Morning News
lfox@dallasnews.com

Grapevine High School senior Anjali Datta holds the highest grade-point average of the 471 students graduating from Grapevine High School this year.

In fact, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD officials believe her GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the high school's history.

Anjali Datta's GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the Grapevine High School history, but she can't be valedictorian and get a one-year scholarship from the state because she graduated in three years instead of the usual four.
View larger More photos Photo store It's still not enough to make her the valedictorian, which brings a one-year college scholarship from the state.

Her closest competitor's GPA is 5.64. No one disputes that she's the top student in her class numerically. The problem rests with another number entirely.

Anjali rocketed through high school in only three years. But a school district policy states: "The valedictorian shall be the eligible student with the highest weighted grade-point average for four years of high school."

The dispute over Anjali's status as valedictorian comes down to interpretation: Does four years mean calendar years of school attendance or does it mean completing the credits it takes most students four years to earn?

It depends on whom you ask.

The 16-year-old started taking high school classes in middle school and says her teachers encouraged her to graduate a year early because she had more than enough credits for graduation.

She said a counselor assured her that doing so wouldn't affect her valedictorian status because she earned her four years of high school credit in the district's schools. Officials had no comment about what a counselor may have said.

The policy was created to protect students from others who might transfer into the district close to graduation and usurp the class ranking of longtime students.

Though that's not the situation in this case, the district's attorneys interpreted the policy literally.

So at graduation ceremonies, 18-year-old Tyler Scott Franklin of Colleyville will be the Grapevine High School valedictorian.

Anjali will be "Valedictorian – Three-Year."

District officials said the title was created for this situation.

"We're doing what we can to extend an additional honor within accordance of school board policy," said Megan Overman, a district spokeswoman. "I'm not going to say that this has been an easy situation. This is something that is new for all of us. We've not faced this situation before."

Ms. Overman said the district researched the decision for months.

"There was a lot of thought involved in this. There is no perfect answer," she said.

Anjali says she and her parents are baffled.

"I have not heard of any educational institution penalizing a student for excellence – for completing a demanding set of classes 'too quickly,' " said her father, Deepak Datta. "Anjali's experience will surely send a strong negative signal to other talented students trying to excel.

"They will most certainly be discouraged from trying to do their best – instead will be more focused on gaming the system."

On Tuesday, Grapevine High School principal Jerry Hollingsworth notified the family via e-mail of the district's position that would arrive this week by certified letter.

"The determination of valedictory honor is one that rests squarely on Grapevine-Colleyville ISD board policy," Dr. Hollingsworth wrote. "In determining an appropriate interpretation of our policy, inquiries were made to both the school district's attorney as well as an attorney at the Texas Association of School Boards.

"Both were clear in their opinions that this honor should go to a student who has four school years in his or her high school career. We are compelled to adhere to school board policy," he wrote.

So, Tyler will receive the college scholarship.

His mother, Kathy, said her family didn't raise the issue with the school district. She said someone brought the district policy to her family's attention.

"We feel obviously that the other student deserves recognition as well," she said. "Considering all of the different factors, this was a good solution."

Anjali says she's struggling to understand the move because the Texas Education Agency doesn't even mention the word "valedictorian" when defining eligibility for the college scholarship.

The state provides Texas high schools with an "Honor Graduate Certificate." The certificate is to be presented to the "highest ranking graduate" in the senior class, according to Texas Education Code.

State officials say it is the local school district's responsibility to determine the highest ranking student, and the state has no authority to get involved. At graduation June 7, Anjali will be honored for her perfect ACT score. She will be acknowledged as an honor graduate and allowed to address her classmates.

But Anjali said it still doesn't feel quite right.

"This really diminishes the value of the valedictorian title," she said.

In fact, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD officials believe her GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the high school’s history.

It’s still not enough to make her the valedictorian, which brings a one-year college scholarship from the state.

Her closest competitor’s GPA is 5.64. No one disputes that she’s the top student in her class numerically. The problem rests with another number entirely.

Anjali rocketed through high school in only three years.

But a school district policy states: “the valedictorian shall be the eligible student with the highest weighted grade point average for four years of high school.”

The dispute over Anjali’s status as valedictorian comes down to interpretation: Does four years mean calendar years of school attendance or does it mean completing the credits it takes most students four years to earn?

It depends on whom you ask.

The 16-year-old started taking high school classes in middle school and she says her teachers encouraged her to graduate a year early because she had more than enough credits for graduation.

She said a counselor assured her that doing so wouldn’t affect her valedictorian status because she earned her four years of high school credit in the district’s schools. Officials had no comment about what a counselor may have said.

The policy was created to protect students from others who might transfer into the district close to graduation and usurp the class ranking of longtime students.

Though that’s not the situation in this case, the district’s attorneys interpreted the policy literally.

So at graduation ceremonies, 18-year-old Tyler Scott Franklin of Colleyville, will be the Grapevine High School valedictorian.

Anjali will be “Valedictorian—Three-Year.”

District officials said the title was created for this situation.

“We’re doing what we can to extend an additional honor within accordance of school board policy,” said Megan Overman, a district spokeswoman. “I’m not going to say that this has been an easy situation. This is something that is new for all of us. We’ve not faced this situation before.”

Ms. Overman said the district researched the decision for months.

“There was a lot of thought involved in this. There is no perfect answer,” she said.

Anjali says she and her parents are baffled.

“I have not heard of any educational institution penalizing a student for excellence – for completing a demanding set of classes ‘too quickly,’” said her father, Deepak Datta. “Anjali’s experience will surely send a strong negative signal to other talented students trying to excel.

“They will most certainly be discouraged from trying to do their best – instead will be more focused on gaming the system.”

On Tuesday, Grapevine High School principal Jerry Hollingsworth notified the family via e-mail of the district’s position that would arrive this week by certified letter.

“The determination of valedictory honor is one that rests squarely on Grapevine-Colleyville ISD board policy,” Dr. Hollingsworth wrote. “In determining an appropriate interpretation of our policy, inquiries were made to both the school district’s attorney as well as an attorney at the Texas Association of School Boards.

“Both were clear in their opinions that this honor should go to a student who has four school years in his or her high school career. We are compelled to adhere to school board policy,” he wrote.

So, Tyler will receive the college scholarship.

His mother, Kathy, said her family didn’t raise the issue with the school district. She said someone brought the district policy to her family’s attention.

“We feel obviously that the other student deserves recognition as well,” she said. “Considering all of the different factors, this was a good solution.”

Anjali says she’s struggling to understand the move because the Texas Education Agency doesn’t even mention the word “valedictorian” when defining eligibility for the college scholarship.

The state provides Texas high schools with an “Honor Graduate Certificate.” The certificate is to be presented to the “highest ranking graduate” in the senior class, according to Texas Education Code.

State officials say it is the local school district’s responsibility to determine the highest ranking student, and the state has no authority to get involved. At graduation on June 7, Anjali will be honored for her perfect ACT score. She will be acknowledged as an honor graduate and allowed to address her classmates.

But Anjali said it still doesn’t feel quite right.

“This really diminishes the value of the valedictorian title,” she said.

Florida to Split in Two!

Florida to become two states?
Reported by: Brandon Moseley Email: bmoseley@abcactionnews.com Last Update: 3:11 pm

Related Links
Weary pirates continue road trip in Florida NORTH LAUDERDALE -- Tired of what they say is mistreatment by the State government, the North Lauderdale City Commission is pushing a resolution that would split Florida into two separate states - North and South.North Lauderdale city leaders say South Florida contributes more tax dollars to the State than they're getting back and are unable to meet all the needs of tax payers.The commission is trying to rev up support by sending out hundreds of resolutions to other South Florida cities and the Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward and Palm Beach counties.The resolution will be up for discussion Wednesday at the City of Margate commission meeting.
Copyright 2008 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Where's Bobby Fisher?

The genius who re-invented chess

By David Edmonds Co-author of Bobby Fischer Goes To War

Bobby Fischer's IQ was estimated at over 180

Bobby Fischer was the man who put chess on the map.

After he beat Boris Spassky in Iceland in 1972 to become world chess champion, the game would never quite be the same again.

A lone American had defeated the might of the Soviet chess machine.

Chess was suddenly on newspaper front pages across the world. In New York a reporter went from bar to bar and discovered that of the 21 he visited, 18 had their televisions tuned to the chess - and only three to the Mets baseball game.

'Communism vs. capitalism'

Why such unprecedented attention to this ancient board game?

It is really the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians Bobby Fischer on his match against Boris Spassky in 1972 Life in pictures Obituary: Bobby Fischer Send us your comments

1972 saw the height of detente, but Mr Fischer portrayed his match as a proxy for the Cold War.

"It is really the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians... This little thing between me and Spassky. It's a microcosm of the whole world political situation," he said.

Mr Fischer hated the Soviets with a passion - they had conspired against him for years, he claimed.

For the Soviets, chess was a vital propaganda tool. Their superiority at the game proved communism's superiority over capitalism - or so they thought.

There were literally millions of registered Soviet chess players, and the elite grandmasters were privileged members of society.

Kissinger's calls

Then there was Mr Fischer's eccentric - to put it mildly - personality.

Bobby Fischer (left) became a grand master at the tender age of 15

Since the age of six chess had been his life. He spent hour after hour, day after day, studying the game.

At the age of 11, he - in his own words - "just got good". By 15, he was a grand master, the youngest in history - and it dawned on the Soviet chess authorities that their pre-eminence was finally under threat.

An evident genius - his IQ was estimated at over 180 - Fischer had no interest in school work and his solitary nature, and brusque manner, was already landing him in trouble.

Twice prior to 1972 he had dropped out of the game - as his demands to tournament organisers became ever more extravagant.

He complained about prize money, about the lighting, the size of the board and pieces, the noise from audiences.

It was unclear whether the 1972 match - the so-called match of the century - would ever take place.

It took a couple of calls from Henry Kissinger, the then US national security adviser, to persuade him to continue.

"This is the worst player in the world calling the best player in the world," one of these telephone calls was reputed to begin.

Total recluse

Victory in Reykjavik should have transformed Mr Fischer into a multi-millionaire. Offers flooded over. A million dollars alone was offered if he would endorse a chess set.

But Mr Fischer would not sign contracts, and within a year he had disappeared, almost without trace.

In 1975, he refused to defend his title against Anatoly Karpov, though the International Chess Federation had conceded to all but two of his 179 demands.

He became a total recluse - his life a fertile ground for rumour.

There was a bizarre episode in 1981 when he was picked up by the police apparently mistaken for a bank robber, and thrown behind bars for two days.

He later published a pamphlet, graphically depicting the indignities he suffered: "I was tortured in the Pasadena jailhouse."

Icelandic sanctuary

Then, in 1992, he defied US sanctions and played a re-match against Mr Spassky for $5m.

At a press conference he spat on a warning letter from the US treasury department.

He proceeded to beat Mr Spassky again - but from this moment on, he was on the run.

By this time he had descended into an abyss of unreality, the world of Holocaust denial, persecution complexes and conspiracy theories.

He raged against the Jews, though his mother was Jewish, and - as released FBI documents later showed - his biological father probably was Jewish too.

His anti-communism transmuted into a rabid anti-Americanism. America, he said after the 11 September 2001 attacks, had got what it deserved.

Finally picked up in Japan, this by now sad, forlorn, ragged character eventually found sanctuary in Iceland.

After all, many Icelanders remembered him with affection. He had not only put chess on the map. For a short period, in 1972, he put this tiny country of only 250,000 people on the map too.

Chess legend Fischer dies at 64

The US-born player was a fierce critic of his government Fischer's career

The controversial former world chess champion, Bobby Fischer, has died in Iceland at the age of 64.

The US-born player, who became famous for beating Cold War Soviet rival Boris Spassky in 1972, died of an unspecified illness, his spokesman said.

He was granted Icelandic citizenship in 2005 as a way to avoid being deported to the US.

Mr Fischer was wanted for breaking international sanctions by playing a match in the former Yugoslavia in 1992.

They [media] constantly use the words eccentric, eccentric, eccentric, weird. I am boring. I am boring! Bobby Fischer Genius who re-invented chess Life in pictures Obituary: Bobby Fischer

He also had alienated many in his homeland by broadcasting anti-Semitic diatribes and expressing support for the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York.

The reclusive player - who had renounced his US citizenship - had lived undetected in Japan for a number of years before moving to Iceland.

Tributes

Mr Fischer died in Iceland on Thursday, his spokesman Gardar Sverrisson said.

The nature of the illness was unknown but Mr Fischer had been reportedly seriously ill for some time.

Spassky said he was "very sorry" to hear of Mr Fischer's death, the Associated Press reported.

Russia's Garry Kasparov, a former world champion, said that Mr Fischer's ascent through the chess world in the 1960s was "a revolutionary breakthrough" for the game.

'Match of the century'

Mr Fischer was born in Chicago in 1943, but was brought up in New York's Brooklyn.

HAVE YOUR SAY

He should be remembered for his wonderful 1972 victory over Spassky, rather than the sad and prolonged end-game of his personal life

Philip Hollywood, UK

Send us your comments

He became a US chess champion at 14 and then the youngest grandmaster a year later.

He achieved world fame after playing a world championship match in Iceland in 1972, beating title-holder Spassky.

The so-called chess "match of the century" came to be seen as a proxy for the Cold War, as the Soviets had held the world title since World War II.

Mr Fischer, the individual who had triumphed over the might of the Communist system, became an American hero.

The 1972 match made chess fashionable, even sexy, some experts say.

He lost the world chess crown in 1975 after refusing to play against his Soviet rival Anatoly Karpov.

US critic

The eccentric US genius then simply disappeared, declining all lucrative sponsorship deals.

He resurfaced briefly in 1992, to play a re-match with Spassky in Yugoslavia in defiance of international sanctions.

Mr Fischer then vanished again, though it later became clear he had been living for a number of years in Japan.

He hit world headlines again after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US.

In an interview to a radio station in the Philippines, he described the attacks as the "wonderful news".

In another interview Mr Fischer accused the media of trying to "poison the public against me".

"They constantly use the words eccentric, eccentric, eccentric, weird. I am boring. I am boring!" he said.

He had also been strongly criticised for making anti-Semitic comments.

Mr Fischer was granted Icelandic citizenship in March 2005, after spending several months in detention in Japan.

Hunters kill one of last Amur Leopards

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Hunters in Russia's Far East have shot and killed one of the last seven surviving female Amur leopards living in the wild, WWF said on Monday, driving the species even closer to extinction.

Last week environmentalists said there were only between 25 and 34 Amur leopards -- described as one of the most graceful cats in the world -- still living in the wild.

At least 100 are needed to guarantee the species' survival which depends upon female leopards breeding. There are more male leopards in the wild than female because cats tend to breed males when under stress, WWF said.

"Leopard murder can only be provoked by cowardice or stupidity, in this case most likely by both," Pavel Fomenko, WWF's biodiversity coordinator in Russia's Far East said in a statement.

A hunter shot the leopard through the tail bone. It tumbled over and was then beaten over the head with a heavy object, WWF said. Amur leopards have not been know to attack humans.

Environmentalists have urged the Russian government to introduce tighter controls on its national parks in the Far East to crack down on leopard hunting.

They also want more done to protect the animal's natural environment and food supply, which they say is being destroyed by human development.

A local wildlife watchdog received an anonymous tip-off that a leopard had been killed. State wildlife officers found the dead animal after a day of searching. The leopard died on either April 15 or April 16, WWF said.

Disability Defence

Bus ordeal for disabled man
Nick Tarver
3/ 4/2007

A BUS driver ordered a man with no legs to prove he was disabled before letting him travel on his bus.

Double amputee Brian Callaghan, 60, was in a wheelchair when his wife Maria helped him board the Number 17 First bus.

But after she bought herself a £1.40 ticket, the driver demanded to see her husband's disabled pass, which entitles him to free travel.

To the astonishment of other passengers on the Middleton-bound bus, he refused to drive on until Mr Callaghan had produced the pass.

Mr Callaghan, of Blackley, a former bus driver himself, said: "The bus drivers never ask me for my pass, because it's obvious that I'm disabled. But this time, after I got settled on the bus, the driver shouted 'Have got your pass mate?'

"I said: 'But I've got no legs - surely you don't need to see it'.

"He told me he did and that the bus wouldn't move until I showed it to him."

He said other passengers were furious and shouted at the driver: 'Are you for real?' but he still refused to budge.

After searching his bag and wallet, he eventually found the pass and showed it to the driver.

Embarrassed

Mr Callaghan said he was extremely embarrassed by the whole experience.

"The bus was full and everyone was looking at me. I couldn't take it all in - it was like the driver thought I was trying to pull the wool over his eyes.

"I was a bus driver for 17 years and I never treated a disabled person like he treated me. I am absolutely livid at his behaviour."

Mr Callaghan, who has two children, Jacqueline, 39, and Bernard, 37, and four grandchildren, was a driver for Manchester buses until 1980 and then became a chauffeur and worked for the city council.

He lost his legs three years ago after he went to hospital with a swollen foot and was diagnosed with diabetes. His first leg was amputated within seven days and his second six months after that.

Although the Callaghans have a car, he and his wife occasionally use public transport and had caught the bus to meet friends for Sunday lunch.

The couple celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary at the weekend and Mr Callaghan said he would be unable to cope without his wife's help.

He still manages to keep active and is chairman of the North Manchester Amputees Group.

All disabled people are allowed to travel free on Greater Manchester buses, trains and Metrolink trams between 9.30am and midnight on weekdays and at all times on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

First director Bob Mason said: "I was saddened to hear of Mr Callaghan's experiences while travelling with us on service 17.

"We need to establish all the facts so that we can learn what transpired and introduce steps, if necessary, to ensure there is no repeat at any time in the future."