I hope you all had a good week! I have two items to share with you today:
First, at the start of this school year, all families signed a one-time Health Attestation form. There is no daily form this year, but the one-time form includes the expectation that families will self-monitor their children and keep them home if they or family members are sick. We want to remind families of this, and we are also reminding staff. In order to preserve the health of our entire community, students and staff who do not feel well are asked to stay home, and families are encouraged to contact the TLC Nursing department with any questions about their child’s health.
Second, regarding Honors classes in the MPS High School, we have made a short-term plan and are starting to work on a long-term plan. For this year, we have examined the opportunities that we are offering for students who want more academic challenges and have identified that we are offering a range of options.
- This year we are providing an Honors option for all ELA/Lit classes.
- This year we are offering AP Literature.
- This year we are offering AP STEM classes through VHS Learning (enrollment is now closed, but this was announced during August).
- This year we are offering two dual-credit classes: Introduction to Website Development for all students and Math in Society for seniors.
- Every year we offer classes at Framingham Public Schools, where there is a wider variety of Honors and AP level classes.
In addition to the above opportunities, teachers are expected to provide work that is appropriately challenging for each student. If students do not feel challenged by the level of work, we encourage them to advocate for themselves, with support from their following teacher, school counselor, family, and school administrators, as needed. In addition, students who have questions about the above decision are encouraged to reach out to me for more information or discussion.
Long-term, we hope to spend some time later this year examining our approach to offering Honors-level classes in the high school. For example, we will look at how we schedule classes to see whether there is a better solution for providing Honors-level classes when there might be only a small number of students who want to take classes at this level.
Have a wonderful weekend, and keep in touch!