At Thursday night's Round Rock ISD workshop meeting, Rebecca Donald, area superintendent of the Westwood Learning Community, presented recommendations and discussion topics on whether to change the way the district weights grade point averages and if the district should continue reporting class rank for high school students.

The committee studying the topic included Round Rock ISD education officials, individual campus administrators, counselors, parents and students.

Donald started her presentation by talking about historical studies on the topic of whether to class rank, noting in 2010 that few school districts were considering not issuing a class rank at that time. Now, Donald said it is a veritable debate.

(State law doesn't require districts to rank students. The law only requires districts to rank the valedictorian and salutatorian and identify a top 10 percent of students for the automatic admissions law.)

"This is a conversation being held around Texas," she said.

The district issued a survey to students, parents and teachers about whether they want to see class rank continue within Round Rock ISD. Fifty-five percent of the 1,800 parent respondents said it would be beneficial to exclude rank in class from transcripts of students who do not qualify for the top 10 percent.

The majority of parents from Westwood High School and middle school said class rank was not beneficial for those not in the top 10 percent. Less than 35 percent of parents from Round Rock, Cedar Ridge and Stony Point high schools said it would be beneficial to exclude class rank from the transcripts of students who are not in the top 10 percent.

As part of the discussion about weighted GPA, Donald suggested changes to the courses the district included in the GPA calculation. Currently, the district only calculates GPA (and class rank) based on core and foreign language classes. Donald did not suggest any changes to this calculation for students enrolled in high school.

"You have to be fair," she said.

Donald recommended in 2022, when the current eighth-grade class enters high school, the district start counting optional courses approved by House Bill 5, dual-credit courses and advanced concurrent enrollment courses.

She then suggested in 2025, when the current fifth-grade class enters high school, high school credit courses taken in middle school be counted toward high school GPA.

Chief of Schools and Innovation Daniel Presley said the board would continue the conversation on class rank in upcoming meetings. He said Thursday's presentation was meant to start the conversation and answer any initial questions on the topic.

Superintendent Steve Flores said he ultimately wants a board recommendation on whether to continue class rank. Flores also said he would be willing to look at each high school campus individually.

"If the board wants us to look at varied options ... we can do that as well," Flores said.

Presley affirmed Flores' suggestion for innovation, saying because state law has few requirements, the district could form any kind of hybrid rank solution.

"We have a lot of autonomy in how we approach this as a district," Presley said.

Read Donald's full presentation here.

Editor's note: In May, Community Impact Newspaper wrote a cover story on the topic of the automatic admissions rule for Texas public universities. Learn more about how that rule works within Round Rock, Pflugerville and Hutto ISDs here.