A new date and a new location. 

The Barrington School Committee has set a new date and location for its meeting to discuss the recent changes to the Barrington High School honors program.

The committee had planned to meet on March 21, but postponed the meeting to Wednesday, March 30 after the high school principal tested positive for Covid-19. (Joe Hurley has been heavily involved in the changes to the honors program at Barrington High School.)

The meeting, which will start at 6:30 p.m., has also been given a new location — the Barrington High School auditorium. That room offers more space and seating than the prior location, the middle school cafeteria.

There has been a lot of interest in the honors program at the high school. Earlier this month, the district sent out an email announcing changes to its honors course options for ninth- and tenth-grade students: Barrington High School will no longer offer an honors distinction option for Social Studies courses or English courses for freshmen and sophomores.

“…Social Studies will return to its original course selection prior to the 2021-2022 school year which did not include an Honors Distinction option,” stated the email. “English will now be offering one heterogenous course in both grades 9 and 10, with no Honors Distinction or Honors option being offered at any grade level.”

This is the second straight year the district has changed the honors program at the high school. 

District officials altered the program of studies going into the 2021-22 school year, eliminating some honors courses and replacing them with an opportunity for students to earn an honors distinction. 

Officials said the change would result in better access to an honors distinction for more students. However, fewer students actually achieved the honors level. 

An Honors Distinction Student Forum at the high school revealed some students’ thoughts about the changes to the program. During the school committee meeting on Thursday, March 10, the student representative to the school committee, Sarah Jageler, shared an overview of what students at BHS had said. Some spoke about the benefits to the deeper learning that accompanied the honors distinction work, while others listed negative aspects or problems with the program: It was hard to understand the requirements for the distinction, there was no clear rubric of what was expected, and some felt the distinction was not worth the amount of work required.

In a letter to the editor, Cristiana Quinn, the founder of College Admission Advisors, LLC, wrote that Barrington is taking a risk with the elimination of its honors courses.

“…BHS administrators are not addressing the fact that many moderately to highly competitive colleges recalculate high school GPAs in the admissions process, multiplying AP and honors classes by 1.25,” Quinn wrote. 

“Many universities then make first round cuts based on that number, particularly in the new era of SAT/ACT-optional admissions. Moving forward, BHS kids will be at a disadvantage without honors humanities classes to boost that GPA calculation.”