Rumors have been swirling around the change of academic club cords for graduating seniors.

Many members of honor clubs like Society of Female Scholars, Society of Male Scholars and Spanish Honor Society will not be allowed to wear the club’s cords at the graduation ceremony.

There has been a lot of confusion surrounding this recent modification. Kimberly Heinz, vice principal,  is in charge of graduation, explains the thinking process behind the decision.

“It came to our attention that some clubs were giving out cords for graduation without administrative approval and it came to be that we were duplicating cords,” Heinz said.

There are a lot of similarities between the qualifications for academic achievement cords,such as a GPA of 3.5 or higher. Administration believed that this excess needed to be removed.

However, Susan Chen, an honors student, who is involved in many honors clubs, believes that there will be many negative consequences.

“Since O’Connor already doesn’t hand out valedictorian titles, if they start taking away the cords too then there’s very limited ways that high achieving students can be recognized,” Chen said.

Heinz expected this reaction from the students, especially the academically involved ones.

“I think the reaction was because the information they had gotten out and spread and it was not accurate when it came out. Many students thought cords were going to be gone completely,” said Heinz.

There was a miscommunication between the sponsors and administration when the decision was made.

“We should have done a better job communicating this information to the students and sponsors. But in the end we had to react fast because it was getting so close to graduation,” Heinz said.

Chen believes that cords are vital to the achievement of students during high school.

“I think cords symbolize not only academic achievement but also student motivation and dedication,” Chen said.