Board adopts one‑year adjustment to honor‑graduate GPA after state expands weighted credits

The Nashville School District board on Jan. 20 adopted a one‑year addendum to the honor‑graduate policy to preserve graduation‑ceremony GPA calculations for the class of 2026.

Miss Riggs, who presented the change, said a June 18 memo from the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education made concurrent credit courses (and other courses such as physics and networking offered on campus) eligible for a weighted quality point beginning in the 2025‑26 school year. Because that change is not retroactive, students who completed those courses before this school year would not receive the extra quality point, creating an imbalance for class‑of‑2026 ranking and ceremony honors.

“To ensure equity for the class of 2026, we will calculate honor‑graduate GPA the same way we did last year,” Miss Riggs said. “While students’ transcripts will still reflect the updated weighted credit, GPA calculations for graduation ceremony purposes will only include weighted credit for AP courses.”

The board adopted the addendum so that transcripts continue to capture the state’s change while the district applies the prior AP‑only weighting when determining Valedictorian/Salutatorian and honor‑graduate distinctions for this graduating class. Miss Riggs said the change will be placed in the student handbook under honor‑graduate policies for this year and that the district will manually verify honor‑graduate calculations before the ceremony.

Board members discussed the one‑year fix as a fairness measure rather than a long‑term policy shift. The board approved the addendum as presented.

The district cited the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education guidance as the reason for the statewide change; the board’s action is limited to how the district computes ceremony GPAs for 2026.