Should the

school system give an added weight to college classes that high school

students take?

That's the

issue that Coweta County school board officials are trying to sort out

after a messy snafu involving the salutatorian at Northgate High School.

Originally,

Northgate officials had tabbed Justin Dunn as this year's salutatorian.

But then the board decided to make Amanda Kerlin co-salutatorian because

she was jointly enrolled at the Academy of Georgia at the State University

of West Georgia and her college classes were given an added weight of

1.15 by Northgate officials.

The problem

is the official school board policy states that college classes should

not receive any extra weight.

School Superintendent

Richard Brooks said school officials were evaluating the classes like

they were the school system's advanced placement classes, which do receive

an extra weight.

"We've

just not had many of these situations prior to this year and the board

will have to decide what their policy is," he said.

The situation

has created a furor between parents who have students enrolled in the

Academy and the board.

The parents

believe their children are being punished by taking harder classes and

not receiving extra credit for it.

During Tuesday

night's board meeting, officials from West Georgia attended and answered

questions about the academy.

The relatively

new program has more than 60 students. Some live on campus in a special

dorm and are jointly enrolled at the college and in high school.

West Georgia's

Susan Colgate, who works with the academy program, strongly believes students

should receive an extra weight for taking college level classes.

She said that

school systems across the state are just starting to grapple with the

problem, and some have chosen to give extra importance to the classes.

Board member

Smith Pass, who chairs the board's Curriculum Committee, announced the

committee will meet next Wednesday at 5 p.m. to discuss the matter and

try and hammer out a policy on the issue.