By Logan Dziadzio, Staff Writer

Bright students in schools around the world strive to see their name on their school’s honor roll. Students do this despite it serving no real value other than recognition. So what purpose would it serve for Trinity Hall to implement an honor roll?

Each Trinity Hall student takes all honors or AP courses. With the tremendous amount of work given in class, students already feel the pressure of getting good grades on their own; so, if Trinity Hall were to begin an honor roll, students would feel even more pressure to get better grades.

In a productive environment students better themselves for the sake of bettering themselves, not to compete with their peers or earn to get rewarded. Trinity Hall’s academics are competitive, and implementing an honor roll would add another aspect to the already demanding curriculum. An honor roll would push Trinity Hall past the limits of “healthy competition” into a school filled with students focused only on getting a good grade.

Since Trinity Hall is academically challenging, some students already have the grades required to be on the honor roll and may have even become accustomed to achieving these grades. With an honor roll, if even one grade was to slip, every other “good grade” wouldn’t matter as much, as that student would have lost her chance at being recognized despite her otherwise high grades.

Trinity Hall has many excelling students who are able to get the grades that are “honor roll material,” but what about those who didn’t meet those standards? The only message they are getting from this competition: “Try harder next time.” And no one wants to experience that demoralizing feeling at the end of a tough trimester.

Many students are taking AP courses that are more difficult than the other honors courses. It would be considerably more difficult for the students in the more challenging classes to get the grades required by the honor roll.

In addition, there are many debatable logistics that would need to be sorted out. Would the student need straight A’s, or would A-’s also be considered as honor roll standards? When would the honor roll be determined, each trimester or year? Would grades in more difficult and AP courses be considered differently? What sort of recognition would each student get? Would the list of students be displayed? Are those students rewarded in any way? What message would you send to those who did not get on the honor roll?

At Trinity Hall, students are taught the importance of community and hard work, therefore establishing this school wide competition and recognizing only certain students based on a few letters would be extremely counterproductive to those ideals.