Maybe the root of the confusion is some kind of new math.
“It seems that a decision was made, somewhat arbitrarily and not based on budget, to limit the number of honors classes offered at the junior highs,” said Northshore School District parent Susan Stoltzfus.
Stoltzfus also is a former spokesperson for the district.
“The number of students to be provided the opportunity to be in these classes was cut in half this year without any notification to parents,” she further contended.
Parent Lori Odendahl claims a son did not qualify for an honors class at his junior high even after being in such classes in lower grades and having a grade-point average roughly equal to an older sibling who did qualify for junior-high honors courses in previous years.
“It seems like the Northshore School District is going backwards in making the honors classes even more difficult and exclusive to get into,” Odendahl said. “And we haven’t gotten a straight answer as to the rationale behind it.”
She described changes to the honors selection criteria as “arbitrary and not fair.”
According to Stoltzfus’ immediate successor, Northshore Communications Director Leanna Albrecht, the only reductions in honors courses that occurred were due to routine fluctuations in the numbers of students who qualified for honors classes.
“We haven’t cut the program,” Albrecht said, while also stating the district received a “few” e-mails from upset parents.
“We have not received any additional questions or comments after we have shared information about the program,” Albrecht continued.
In her comments, Albrecht talked about what may or may not be the cause of some of the controversy, stating that district officials adjusted the qualifications needed for honors classes in order to standardize those qualifications throughout the district.
She further offered that Northshore eliminated a seventh-grade humanities honors class last year, the object again being standardization, this time of class curriculum. Albrecht added officials plan to appoint a task force to come up with a new model for an honors humanities course.
Stoltzfus pointed to class offerings at Northshore and Timbercrest junior highs as proof of alleged cuts in honors offerings. She said Northshore Junior High reduced the number of honors language-arts classes for eighth-graders from two to one. At Timbercrest, she maintains the district sliced the number of eighth-grade honors language classes from four to two.
Supplied by Albrecht, district numbers confirmed reductions occurred in the language arts classes at Northshore Junior High. Comparing the current school year to the 2009-2010 school year, the figures showed offerings for the same course at Timbercrest moving from three to two.
But in explaining those numbers, Albrecht essentially reiterated the comments she had made earlier, stating the district used “different data points” to determine student eligibility for English honors classes.
“This year all junior highs used the same assessments and data points,” Albrecht said.
According to information supplied by Albrecht, officials also eliminated a “self-select” model established for certain honors classes at Timbercrest by a former principal. The district claims the self-select classes “put a strain on the regular, non-honors courses and the other junior highs,” which always used assessments to qualify students for honors classes.
Stoltzfus remained insistent that cuts did not occur naturally or as a result of standardization of qualifications. Citing a district source she declined to identify in order to protect the source’s job, Stoltzfus stated “a decision was made at the district level to reduce the offerings.”
Stoltzfus added junior high principals were “chagrined” about the decision, but could do nothing about it.
“They were told the goal was to offer the same number of sections of honors classes at each junior high,” she said, noting that in the past, different schools routinely offered different numbers of classes.
