Los Laureados:An Honor or Favoritism?

 

CURTIS LEE Staff Writer

 

As senior year festivities begin, Alhambra High School recognizes certain seniors with the Los Laureados award. The direct translation of “Los Laueado” is “the honored or of high glory.” Each year, teachers are asked to nominate seniors that they know, are currently teaching or have taught. From that pool of nominations, teachers are then asked to vote from a list of nominated students.

Semi-finalists are then chosen at a meeting and introduced at an assembly. The process beyond that is unclear to students. There are two major issues with the award being considered the “highest honor” in Alhambra High School. The first comes in the form of nominations.

Teachers should continue to be able to nominate students, but nominations should be opened to students that would like to nominate themselves or their peers. Los Laureados is supposed to recognizes students with high academic achievements, excellent leadership skills or outstanding qualities. Other than academic achievements, students have a greater and more appropriate perspective of these distinguished students. Leadership skills in clubs and sports are demonstrated in leading peers and not teachers.

Teachers are reliable in what they observe of individuals that may seem appropriate for the honor, but most of a student’s interactions are with other students. This would also open up nominations to students that may not have known teachers well enough to be nominated but are equally as deserving of the honor. The second issue is simply the lack of information and structure involved. For nominees, non-nominees, semifinalists or finalists, an unclear description of what the honor is or how the process was executed may lead to confusion. The simple solution is to draft an official rubric that teachers, with the deciding votes, can use to help decide on who gets eliminated or who receives the Los Laureados award.

Favoritism and other forms of bias will be minimized therefore reducing complaints or rumors of other qualified nominees. As of now, a teacher who may know a student better may consider the nominee with an unfair advantage over another nominee because there is no clear rubric of what the qualifications are. In a sense, this could even be seen as a popularity contest between students that know the most number of teachers voting for the final recipients. There are many things to celebrate about those who receive the Los Laureados award because many recipients, in the past, have been well qualified individuals with remarkable achievements.

However, there are still many questions that remain over the individuals that were equally or more qualified and did not receive the award. It is time take a step back and reevaluate the nomination process to ensure a fair chance for all seniors that want an opportunity to be nominated. In addition to that change, the process should be clearly detailed and a rubric of how finalists are chosen. The Los Laureados award is a tradition that should continue, but it is time to make these changes.