School district: Students must share honor

Two valedictorians will share the stage at Malverne High School's graduation and neither is happy about it.

After the district apologized Tuesday for miscalculating the grade-point averages of the top-ranked students, Superintendent James Hunderfund announced that Aalique Grahame and Sarah St. John would be co-valedictorians.

But Grahame, who has the highest GPA, said the honor should be his alone.

St. John, who was originally named valedictorian, agreed with Grahame and said she doesn't want to be a co-valedictorian.

"I don't want anything I don't technically deserve," said St. John, 18. "I don't want to take anything from Aalique."

The district said Wednesday that the decision to have co-valedictorians is final. Both valedictorians were expected to speak at the graduation ceremony June 24.

The error arose when a district employee calculating grade-point averages inadvertently omitted the grades from the fall semester of the students' senior year, the district said.

Based on six semesters' worth of grades, the district said, St. John was the valedictorian and Grahame salutatorian.

Then, Grahame's aunt and guardian Dorolyn Montgomery questioned the rankings at a district board meeting last week.

After recalculating, the district found that Grahame's weighted GPA was 95.42 and St. John's was 95.16.

"It was a mistake at school," St. John said. "It wasn't anybody's fault."

Hunderfund issued an apology and told the students they would be named co-valedictorians since St. John was declared top student months ago.

The two families met with high school Principal James Brown on Tuesday night to talk about the rankings and the shared honors.

They said that they aren't pleased with the district's compromise.

"I understand why they did it, and I guess it was the best way to do it," said St. John, who noted that Grahame is a friend.

Still, she called the situation "embarrassing" and doesn't want to be involved with the class rankings at this point.

"I was definitely upset about it. It's still frustrating and a little embarrassing," she said. "But it's now time to get over it."

And Grahame, 17, said he should be the sole valedictorian. "I honestly don't think it's fair to me, after how hard I worked to get to that position," he said. "If I'm ahead, that's how it should be."

He and his aunt vowed to keep pressing the district to name him the valedictorian.

"The bottom line is, if you're in the race, the person who's first is first," Montgomery said.

St. John is headed to Molloy College this fall to study music therapy. Grahame is going to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to study science.

Joining them at the top of the class is the new salutatorian, senior Xavier Bernard, who is headed to New York University's Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn to study business management.

On Tuesday, the district designated him second in his class with a GPA of 93.79.

It's an honor that also comes with a responsibility on graduation day.

"I think I'm going to give a speech," said Bernard, 18. "I'm brainstorming as we speak."