Cleveland students are pushing back against a side effect of the district’s massive high school consolidation: under the new merged campuses, students who would have been valedictorian at their old school now compete against classmates from an entirely different building for the same title, and some say the math simply doesn’t work in their favor. At a school board meeting last Tuesday, two students stood up during public comment to ask the Cleveland Metropolitan School District to recognize multiple valedictorians and salutatorians at merged schools rather than naming just one per campus.
Marilia Tsirikos, a senior at John Hay High School, and Ardae Perry spoke during the public comment session at the board meeting on Oct. 27, according to Signal Cleveland. Two additional students submitted written comments opposing the decision, the outlet reported. Their concerns stem from the district’s Building Brighter Futures plan, the sweeping consolidation that the Cleveland Board of Education adopted on Dec. 9, 2025, cutting the number of CMSD high schools from 27 to 14.
Why Class Rank Suddenly Matters More
Tsirikos told the board that the class-rank policy is unfair because students at her former school had access to fewer advanced classes than peers now sharing a campus with them, per Signal Cleveland’s reporting. She said students had worked, studied and led at their legacy schools and deserved recognition for it. Students from merged schools now compete against each other for class rankings, a shift that matters because colleges use class rank to calculate merit scholarships, which can directly affect a student’s finances.
CMSD typically calculates class rank first using unweighted GPA and then weighted GPA to break ties, according to the seed reporting, with Advanced Placement, honors and college-credit classes earning 5.0 points instead of 4.0 in the weighted calculation. Campus International offered fewer advanced classes than some peer schools, the reporting noted. Cynthia Dalveren, a guidance counselor at John Hay High School, said Campus International students cannot mathematically attain valedictorian or salutatorian under the current comparison.
A Proposal Without Transcript Changes
Perry proposed recognizing would-be valedictorians and salutatorians from each merged school at graduation without altering transcripts or official GPA figures. Perry told Signal Cleveland that students are asking for recognition rather than changes to GPA numbers or transcripts themselves. The district has not made a final decision on how class rank will work this year, per Warren Morgan, as cited in the same reporting, and some Ohio school districts do not rank students at all, the outlet noted.
Ohio state law does not restrict district authority to set valedictorian and salutatorian policies, according to the reporting, leaving CMSD with discretion over how to handle the issue. CMSD leaders have said one goal of the mergers was to equalize student opportunities across the district, a framing consistent with the district’s own messaging that the consolidation plan, officially named Building Brighter Futures, was built to concentrate resources and expand access for students.
The Bigger Consolidation Behind the Dispute
Campus International High School is one of the schools folded into the John Hay campus under the plan, merging with John Hay High School while retaining its International Baccalaureate program, according to cleveland.com. The Cleveland school board approved the broader consolidation plan unanimously, voting 9-0, and the district expects it to close 23 buildings and operate 29 fewer schools overall. Officials project the changes will save the district roughly $30 million a year.
The district has framed the mergers as a response to a long enrollment slide: CMSD enrollment has fallen by more than half, from 70,000 students in 2000 to 34,000 today, cleveland.com reported. Ideastream Public Media reported that officials said the goal was to provide a better educational experience for all students by focusing resources on a smaller number of schools, with CMSD leaders saying the changes would expand academic, arts, athletic, career and college-preparation opportunities across the board.
Separate Honors Still Stand for the Class of 2026
The tension over how to handle valedictorians comes even as CMSD’s own records show the district has, in the recent past, recognized separate valedictorians and salutatorians at individual schools. The district’s official Class of 2026 recognition program, held May 12, 2026, listed Campus International valedictorian Elena Cox with a 4.46 GPA and salutatorian Micah Schwab with a 4.42 GPA, alongside separate honorees at Cleveland Early College and numerous other schools, according to the program document. Cleveland Early College’s valedictorian, Morgen Rosario, was recorded with a 4.78 GPA and $383,648 in awarded scholarship dollars, while salutatorian Samatha Suwarna held a 4.478 GPA and $112,000 in awards.
Those figures illustrate what students like Tsirikos and Perry say is at stake as campuses combine. With John Hay’s three component schools enrolling 211, 259 and 375 students in the 2024-25 school year and Campus International enrolling 207, according to district planning documents, the newly combined student bodies mean far more competition for a single valedictorian slot than any one legacy school faced on its own. Whether CMSD will adjust its recognition policy for the newly merged campuses remains an open question the district has not yet answered.
