The 2025-2026 Liberty High School academic year will be the final year of the valedictorian, removing the distinction of valedictorian altogether for the graduating class of 2027. While the graduation ceremony will continue for years to come, the valedictorian will not return in the later years.
Senior Siobhan Patterson, the upcoming valedictorian for the class of 2026, said, “It’s nice to be recognized for my work over the past years, and I’m proud of myself for this final achievement. Being the last valedictorian is kind of cool to think abou,t but I’m also okay with the fact that not many other people are really thinking about it.”
Patterson, even while having earned that number one spot, doesn’t think the removal of the valedictorian title is necessarily a bad thing.
“I don’t think the title of valedictorian pushes academically focused people to work hard. It’s really just a consequence of being dedicated and genuinely loving learning. At the end of the day, it’s what I get to put on my resume and college apps, not my big life goal. So, removing valedictorians doesn’t really change the trajectory for people like me. From my understanding, top students are still receiving some kind of acknowledgement, just like athlete,s which I think is fair enough,” Patterson stated.
She also hopes to use her title of valedictorian for positive change.
“I hope that as valedictorian, people don’t just talk about how high my GPA [grade point average] is or how impressive my work is. I don’t see it that way. If anything, I want people to be inspired to love learning and pursue that in their own way. I know so many people who are dedicated to learning; for them, it’s about music, art, sports, etc., and has something they are passionate about. I truly believe education is the best thing someone can do for themselves, and it’s best when applied to something you love,” Patterson said.
The decision to permanently remove valedictorians was not a Liberty-only decision; in fact, all of District 20 will not feature valedictorians and salutatorians to make way for a more inclusive acknowledgment amongst high-ranking students.
Principal Matthew Sisson said, “Three years ago, there was a conversation around valedictorian, salutatorian, the top ten, and the conversation shifted to how we could possibly honor more students. Just because we have such a high-performing community of students, we talked about moving to the Latin system,” a system that categorizes students based on their GPA performance, generally divided into cum laude (with praise), magna cum laude (with great praise) and summa cum laude (with highest praise).
Sisson said, “With that, it allowed us to really honor students who are performing at a much higher academic standard, and we agreed that we were going to make that shift. The second part of that conversation was what to do with val/sal, and there was a lot of feedback from a multitude of high school principals that really talked about just the level of stress, while is started as a competitive component, it really became a game of cat and mouse in some instances, not in every instance, sure, but it was almost to a point where it was a little much. Students still receive their cords for their academic success. If you really think about it, those two spots, val/sal, are very singular. So, I think we have such large classes of students, I think students will probably recognize the fact that they’re receiving a cord for their academic success versus having one individual hold the highest position.”
The administration amongst D20 schools is still in discussion about the GPA or class rank cutoff distinctions for next year.
