Every year, Mira Costa’s faculty and staff vote to determine the nominees for Student of the Year. While the final selection process usually results in the right student being chosen, lack of clarity and student input and a misguided emphasis on perfect grades bring the nomination process down.
Certificated staff members vote to determine the nominees. Voters are given ballots which contain the members of the senior class with the top 10% of unweighted GPAs. Once the ballots are tallied, the five (and six in case of a tie) highest vote-getters are nominated. Representatives from each of the 11 departments on campus then vote on the nominees. The nominee with a majority of votes is named Student of the Year.
The primary problem with the Student of the Year nomination process is the confusion about the award itself. The Student of the Year should be the best all-around citizen the senior class has to offer. The graduating class’s valedictorians already celebrate the students with the best grades.
While strong academic performance is certainly an implied prerequisite, involvement in athletics, extracurricular activities and community service related to the Mira Costa community should be the defining factors.
According to history teacher Bill Fauver, voters are currently told to weigh a potential nominee’s academic strengths as 60% of the decision, and co-curricular activities and citizenship as 20% of the overall decision each.
The current nomination system does not adequately allow for outside factors like extracurriculars to be considered. In fact, many voters simply vote by name-recognition, as the ballot contains only the student’s name and grade point average. Community involvement isn’t openly considered until the nominees have been selected and have put together an extensive portfolio of essays and accomplishments that demonstrate their time at Mira Costa.
To improve the merit of all nominees, alterations to the nomination process must be made. An original ballot of the top students with the highest 10% of weighted GPAs should be provided to voters. In order to encourage teachers to vote for students they may have never taught, they would be able select 10 students each to advance to the second round of voting.
The second round of voting would feature the top-25 vote-getters from the first round, and students would be able to provide a short biography describing their time at Costa to go along with their name on the ballot. Voters would then each select five students to be the final nominees and advance to the final selection of the Student of the Year. The award should represent the best all-around student Costa has to offer.
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