On May 2, it was announced via Jupiter Grades that there would be an underclassmen award ceremony on May 9 at Bonita Vista High (BVH)’s gymnasium at 6 p.m.. This annual ceremony honors BVH students who are nominated by their teachers in different subjects and receive a certificate based on the award they earn. Assistant Principal Jason Josafat explains what the underclassmen awards are.

“The underclassmen awards are awards that we give to underclassmen and they are mainly teacher-driven. What we do is we send out an email to the teachers and say we’re gonna have an underclassmen award on this day, for this year,” Josafat said.

Underclassmen awards are not much different from senior awards. The awards don’t have as many categories and are focused on an academic aspect. They are given by teachers or small organizations as compared to the senior awards. International Baccalaureate (IB) coordinator Jared Phelps shares his feelings on why underclassmen awards aren’t recognized as much. 

“I feel like the underclassmen awards are more local. The vast majority of the awards are given by teachers so it’s something that’s local to me where the senior awards are ‘This person got a scholarship from here’ or ‘This person got a full ride to this university,” Phelps said.

There are many chances for students to get an award, an example being a student following the “Baron way”. Despite giving individuals awards on a daily basis, having an underclassmen award ceremony helps put more recognition on what students who aren’t seniors may accomplish during class.

“I’ve been giving ‘the Baron way’ certificates for kids with straight A’s and citizenship. I always want to recognize students for positive behavior and also let the parents know that their kid is doing well academically,” BVH Principal Lee Romero said.

Teachers in each department have a certain criteria that they follow in the process of picking a student. There is an award for each subject including English, Math, History and Physical Education. Teachers also look at how students behave in the classroom and see if they are working hard. For Social Science teacher Jose Vallejo, he mentions how he also considers the way a student works outside the classroom when picking a student to get an award.

“I look at whether the students are doing other things besides just excelling in the classroom. Are they doing community service since it’s their social science or are they doing other activities on campus? Are they involved? Do they seem to have a positive attitude for the whole process of being a student or is it just in our class?,” Vallejo said.

The process of nominating a student takes about a week. Teachers that work in the same department work together in gathering multiple students who are candidates for receiving the award, considering the department’s criteria, then come to a consensus on one student in that specific department.

“During teachers PLC [Professional Learning Community] time, they [Department Chairs] let the teachers know that we’re doing this [underclassmen awards] and then they come up with a consensus of who the top students may be in certain classes or certain subjects, but mainly certain subjects,” Josafat said.

Students can win multiple awards in different departments, but students can only win one award in the same department. Awards are offered in all departments in classes for freshman, sophomores and juniors since seniors have their own ceremony.

“For example, I have three AP [Advanced Placement] World History classes. Only one student will get it from all three. So it’s a student that’s overachieving–in general for that subject–not per class,” Vallejo said. “Our decision to nominate students is based on the department, so it’s the entire social science department for underclassmen.”

In addition, teachers look at how the student is doing throughout the school year. At the ceremony, students are called up onto the stage by name and will receive a certificate, noting what award they had won. Romero mentions why it is important to have these types of events.

“This is an opportunity for us to highlight not just seniors that are doing academically and behavioral doing well, but it gives us a chance to look at the underclassmen and honor their achievements,” Romero said. “I want to reiterate that a ceremony like this is so important because parents get a chance to see actual results that teachers nominated their kid for something positive.”