SAN JOSE CALIF. — There should be multiple valedictorians; students who academically work hard at Silver Creek to become valedictorian should have that opportunity to become valedictorian at graduation.

High Schools need to allow more than 2 valedictorians to be on stage for graduation. Valedictorian is a title that holds much significance and limiting the amount of how many students could be one is bizarre. Valedictorian is a student who has the most/highest academic achievements of the class, who deliver a valedictory at a graduation ceremony. 

Many students work hard to achieve the title and those who met the requirements and managed to obtain that title should also get the opportunity as well. Allowing more students to become valedictorian, rewards them for the hard work and excellence during their school year. Rather than overlooking their accomplishments and choosing the top 2, The school should recognize their achievements and allow more students to become valedictorian.

Valedictorian doesn’t also have to factor in academic performance as well. It could include their leadership ability such as leading clubs. Administrators could even factor in how much community service or contributions they have done for the school. Extracurriculars can even be considered as well, how they participate in sports and maybe how they lead their team to victory! There could be many other requirements to be valedictorian as well, but in my opinion I think these are the most important criteria for valedictorian.

Well, let’s look at the criteria of valedictorian. To achieve the title, there are many criteria that could come into play. There is how well the student academically performs and is measured by the class rank and GPA. There could also be the inclusion of how difficult the courses they took and how it can come into play for the valedictorian status. 

However, people disagree about having multiple valedictorians. Some people think that the idea of multiple valedictorians downplay the significance of the title. Well rather than downplaying the title, we should acknowledge those that worked hard for the title. The idea of multiple valedictorians would cause people to work for the title more as students would know their efforts were not for nothing.

Not having multiple valedictorians is a bad way to approach inclusivity in the community. Students won’t strive for the title if it’s known their efforts are thrown away because other students outperformed them. The title of valedictorian should promote students’ hard work not downplay their efforts. Schools should begin to have multiple valedictorians so all students could have their achievements recognized.