By FRANK JOHNSON

At the regular meeting of the Bardstown School Board Tuesday, Bardstown Middle School principal Bob Blackmon explained to the board a new program designed to overhaul the traditional “honor roll” system.

The long-established lists of high-scoring students has been replaced with various cards — gold for a 4.0 GPA, silver for a 3.0-3.9 GPA, bronze for improving GPA by .5 and purple for students recognized by teachers for extreme good effort.

Blackmon said a key part of the program are also the quarterly “Renaissance Rallies,” which he described as a themed pep assembly that recognize scholastic accomplishment instead of sporting endeavors.

“The idea is to focus as much as possible on academic achievement,” he said.

In addition to being given school-wide recognition, membership also confers other benefits, such as free T-shirts, reduced admission to school events and an invitation to a special end-of-the-year trip.

Board chairman Margie Bradford asked Blackmon how the school would measure the success of the program. Blackmon said while it was too early to tell, he hoped it would result in more students at the gold and silver level along with increased attendance.

“Hopefully, it will make students tend to want to be here and realize the importance of grades,” he said.