Joining a national trend, the Eastern Carver County School District is considering dropping class rankings from students' high school transcripts it sends to colleges and universities.

The recommendation will be presented to the district's school board next week by a group of parents and administrators who have been studying the issue for more than a year. It is unclear when the board might vote on the matter, but the parents hope it can be implemented before this year's seniors' transcripts are sent out to colleges.

Last year, the parent leadership group at Chaska High School studied the pros and cons of eliminating class rank and eventually recommended that ranks be removed from transcripts beginning this year.

But with the district opening a second high school -- the new Chanhassen High -- this fall, it delayed a decision until now, said Nancy Kracke, the district's director of community relations.

Should the school board go along with dropping the class ranking, it would join a number of metro area districts that already have done so, including Edina, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka and Wayzata. Nationally, slightly more than half of the districts in the country have done away with class ranking in the past 20 years, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

The Chaska proposal has been available for public comment for several weeks, and district officials said the overwhelming response from parents has been positive.

The concern among parents, they said, is that class ranking -- especially at a high-achieving school -- might not fairly portray the academic accomplishments of a student. One student, for example, might take all advanced-placement classes and have a 3.5 grade-point average, while another student taking easier classes could maintain a 4.0. The first student could end up with a lower class ranking than the second student, and he or she might be passed over by some colleges or universities as a result.

"It does happen," said Assistant School Superintendent Lynn Scearcy, the Eastern Carver County district's chief academic officer. "It was viewed as problematic."

One benefit that the district hopes will come from dropping class rank is that students will take more challenging courses if they are not so worried about their GPA and their class rank.

"There is compelling evidence that elimination of class rank could have a positive impact on encouraging our high school students to select appropriately rigorous course work rather than selecting courses to protect class rank," states the report, issued this week.

The parents group said it talked to college recruiters and admissions officials, who indicated that class rank was no longer seen as a significant statistic in decisions about choosing their freshman classes.

Even so, the Chaska parents group wants to minimize the possibility that class ranking could hurt some of their students with some colleges.

"Eliminating class rank would force [colleges] to look at other things," Scearcy said.

Heron Marquez Estrada • 612-673-4280