{"id":319250,"date":"2026-06-02T14:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T14:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/319250\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T14:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T14:52:10","slug":"texas-charter-school-goes-to-court-over-who-should-be-named-valedictorian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/319250\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas charter school goes to court over who should be named valedictorian"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Texas school was taken to court amidst a fierce battle <\/a>between two students over the title of valedictorian <\/a>of their high school.<\/p>\n

In January, senior Nathan Olivarri was named valedictorian at Legacy The School for Sport Sciences, a charter school in Spring, Texas. By February, the school said that a junior who decided to graduate early actually had the highest GPA and would be given the honor.<\/p>\n

Olivarri had a 4.4547 while the unnamed junior had a 4.6530, according to court records obtained by KTRK-TV. <\/a><\/p>\n

A lawsuit by Olivarri\u2019s family argued that the other student\u2019s GPA was improperly calculated and that it was too late in the year for the title to be transferred, according to a student handbook.<\/p>\n

A judge sided with Olivarri\u2019s family, ordering that the senior would be named valedictorian and be allowed to give a speech at graduation.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Two Texas teens were told they were the valedictorian \u2014 until a judge decided who would get to claim the title (Google Maps)<\/p>\n

\u201cI am thankful to the courthouse for realizing who the true valedictorian is, and I\u2019m thankful to my parents for always supporting me through everything,\u201d Nathan Olivarri told KTRK-TV.<\/p>\n

The school argued in its legal response that the junior was not the only student who decided to graduate early, and as a result, changed their class ranking. It said that GPAs were calculated following state guidelines and were announced correctly.<\/p>\n

The school also conducted an independent investigation and a review by its board, both of which found that the school calculated the GPAs correctly and that the school was not wrong in naming the junior valedictorian.<\/p>\n

The Independent has contacted Legacy The School for Sport Sciences for more information.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the TV station, the school said their \u201cunwavering focus has always been and will remain on honoring the dedication and hard work of every one of our students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Olivarri family was grateful to the judge for their ruling. Graduation was held this past weekend, and Nathan delivered his speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of this could have been avoided, but it\u2019s the past; we\u2019re putting it behind us,\u201d his father, Vincent Olivarri, said.<\/p>\n

The school\u2019s founder told the outlet that the legal process is ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas school was taken to court amidst a fierce battle between two students over the title of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20928,42070,114488,114489,746,27,29,28,114490],"class_list":["post-319250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-charter-school","tag-ktrk-tv","tag-legacy-the-school-for-sport-sciences","tag-nathan-olivarri","tag-spring","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-valedictorian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}