I knew someone from my high school who did not get valedictorian just because he didn't play a school sport (he instead got his eagle scout rank, played a sport in a non-school league because the sport he played was not offered at school, was an officer in science Olympiad, etc.) Not having played a school sport meant he could not opt out of the second semester of p.e. In turn, this dropped his GPA relative to those who did play a school sport. Another kid I knew chose to take a second semester of chemistry at the local college instead of taking one the honors level classes at the high school that would have been weighted higher. He wanted to study chemistry in college and didn't see the point of taking a psych or another history course since he was given this option.

According to school board chairman Tom Benton, the age-old system of assigning a valedictorian was encouraging an “unhealthy” level of competition, and students were choosing courses based on what would boost their GPA rather than what they would learn.

These seem to be similar problems to what this NC school is having. If the students I had talked about had been more competitive about getting valedictorian, which it seem some students at the NC school have been, they would have ended up with less of the knowledge and skills which are actually useful to them. Both of these students as well as the student who received valedictorian all got straight A's and all deserved to be the top of the class but only one of them happened to take the correct combination of classes to have the numbers in their favor. This, to me, devalues the meaning of the award. Having a cum laude award in place of the valedictorian system would have made sense. It is totally not the same as a YMCA trophy.