- A high school awarded white students top honors after two Black students were already chosen.
- Parents at a Mississippi school claimed it had miscalculated the criteria for valedictorian and salutatorian.
- Breaking with tradition, the school ended up naming two white students as co-valedictorian and co-salutatorian.
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A Mississippi high school named two white students co-valedictorian and co-salutatorian even though two Black students had already been given those top honors several days prior, the New York Times reported.
West Point High School students Ikeria Washington and Layla Temple, who are both Black, were named valedictorian and salutatorian of their class during a senior awards ceremony last week.
However, the announcement didn't sit well with some families, and shortly after, the white parents of two students ended up raising complaints to the school that it did not properly calculate the criteria to determine the two designations.
After reviewing the student handbook, West Point's school district's Superintendent Burnell McDonald announced there had been a mistake and - breaking with longstanding tradition - named two other students (who are both white) as co-valedictorian and co-salutatorian.
McDonald, who is Black, told Mississippi Today that the counselor who had calculated the grades was new to the school and given incorrect information about how to determine the designations.
Washington and Temple had won based on the highest Quality Point Average (QPA) but not on Grade Point Average (GPA).
Washington's family told the New York Times that the announcement caused their daughter to be "upset" and that they're considering suing.
"She had been crying. She thought it was going to be her night," Ikeria's mother, Angela Washington told the Times.
On graduation night, all four students delivered their speeches.
This is not the first time a school has raised questions around top academic designations. Earlier this year, a high school student in the small town of Alpine, Texas, took her school to court after claiming that the school did not rank her grades correctly.