Letter: Loss of class levels for students is a serious concern

Posted 3/17/21

To the editor:

Over the past few years, students taking conceptual classes at BHS have seen their academic choices disappear and instead merged into general level courses. Parents have expressed …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Letter: Loss of class levels for students is a serious concern

Posted

To the editor:

Over the past few years, students taking conceptual classes at BHS have seen their academic choices disappear and instead merged into general level courses. Parents have expressed concern and have noted the unintended consequences this decision has had on their children while speaking out at the May 28, 2020 School Committee meeting.

Fast forward to February 2021, and BHS students were provided a new Program of Studies to select their Fall 2021 classes. Students, and then parents, were stunned to find that in addition to conceptual classes being removed, Honors level classes had also begun to be removed for next year, starting with English Language Arts, with Math and Science slated to follow, at an unknown time in the future. Families were left scrambling to learn about this initiative and a little understood partnership with the XQ Institute that put Barrington on this path.

To date, there is no comprehensive communication as to why this decision was made, no information posted on the BPS website about this initiative, no clear data to support this decision and no sign of an implementation plan. Parents and students shared unanimous concerns at the March 11, 2021 School Committee meeting both on the impact and the lack of transparency in the decision-making process.

Loss of class levels for students is a serious concern but this situation raises a larger concern. A concern for all of us should be the administration’s calculated decision to move forward with a massive initiative without stakeholder engagement, with a lack of transparency in the decision-making process, and without feeling compelled to update their governing body. 

As things stand now, the School Committee will be forced to choose between supporting the administration or supporting the students and parents they were elected to represent. By forcing this choice, the administration may hope to avoid public scrutiny of the rationale behind its decision as well as a public accounting of how implementation is happening in Barrington. 

I urge our School Committee members to intervene and to establish a clear policy on how major decisions that impact our students are approved. Without an intervention, this unchecked change will set a dangerous precedent for the Administration to work without engaging the community, without a timeline and without transparency. Furthermore, it will erode the trust in the School Committee as a representative of the voters of Barrington.

We the public deserve to be a part of this process, not just seen as an obstacle to be circumvented or ignored. Situations like this one are precisely why Barrington needs a School Committee willing to provide strong leadership, oversight and accountability for our community.  As an educational community, we must hit PAUSE on this initiative so we can all better understand how we got to this point without a formal plan, without clear timelines, sufficient data, research and assessment protocols. We need a plan that is built with all stakeholders, not despite them. 

Maura McCrann

Barrington

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.