At the next Sag Harbor School Board meeting in November, school administrators said this week, they will be bringing a proposed policy change to the board: removing the current class ranking system and replacing it with a Latin honors system beginning with next year’s senior class.
This comes after the results of a two-question survey were presented to the board Monday night. Respondents overwhelmingly favored changing the system, with a smaller but clear majority supporting implementing the change for the class of 2026.
According to Michael Guinan, an assistant principal at Pierson High School, there were 64 respondents to the survey, of which roughly 72 percent were parents. The rest were students from different high school grades; about 69 percent of them favored implementing a Latin honors system in which they can earn designations such as magna cum laude or summa cum laude.
The second question on the survey was when to implement the change. Although a majority opinion emerged there, too, it was not as conclusive as the first question. About 45 percent said they would like to see the change next year, affecting the current junior class. Around 34 percent voted for it to be changed starting with the current freshman class.
As for how the honors system will work, Jeff Nichols, the district superintendent, noted that the district will set a “grade level” threshold.
“We’ll take a look at the data” and then establish, for example, that 95 is cum laude and 99 is summa cum laude, he said. The district will continue awarding the distinctions of valedictorian and salutatorian, in addition to making information available on the top 10 percent of students for the purpose of financial aid and scholarship applications.
This topic was floated to the board by the Shared Decision Making Committee last year and has since received input from the board, parents, students, and administrators. Mr. Marsili noted that the process has been “a great statement on how the Shared Decision Making Committee works.”
The school board was very appreciative of the collaborative work, and members indicated their support for making the change next year and adding the Latin honors program.
“I think if we’re doing it, we should just do it,” said Jordana Sobey, the board vice president.