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The first thing parents, teachers, and students heard is that 10th grade Honors English is not going away, at least for now.  About 40 people attended a meeting Wednesday in which Lansing High School Principal Eric Hartz explained changes in the honors curriculum and strategies for bringing more opportunities to more students going forward.  After a similar meeting about a month ago he said that the 10th grade honors class would be eliminated.  But Wednesday he backed off of that idea.

"I'm truly trying to listen," Hartz told parents.  "We want to make good decisions for kids.  We want to make sure that we're providing the education that Lansing is known for.  I tend to move fast, but one of the things we have to do is slow down sometimes.  And I think at this point with English (Honors) we need to slow down and make sure we're doing the right thing for all kids."

Hartz's idea is twofold: to provide more opportunities for all students in the high school, and to mix exceptional students with those who want to be challenged.  He has been working with Director of Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment and Professional Development Lauren Faessler, and with the English Department to figure out the best configuration for English across the board.  The idea of cutting the 10th grade honors English class was to bring up students to a level where they could qualify for the 11th grade honors class, increasing the number of students with access to those classes.

At this point the plan is to keep the 10th grade honors class, but open honors English to any student who wants to be more challenged.  Students will be able to add the course in consultation with their parents and guidance counselor.  Hartz says that monitoring of student progress will have to be improved so that students for whom Honors is just not a good fit have an opportunity to switch during the ten week add/drop period.  He says that students who might not traditionally have qualified for honors English may be excited by the challenge, and rise to it.  This 'open enrollment' will apply to tenth and eleventh grade honors classes and Advanced Placement (AP) classes.

"Open enrollment would be students and parents self-selecting for students who want to challenge themselves in those courses," Hartz said.  If you are a student who didn't want to go through the application process or didn't have an 80 or an 85, but it would have been nice to challenge myself -- we're taking those barriers away."

At the same time the A level courses are being dropped.  Hartz said that a co-teaching approach that will pair a regular curriculum teacher with a special education teacher will help, along with improved monitoring, insure that no student is overwhelmed by being part of the mix.  And the hope is that exposure to higher achieving kids will help lower achieving ones improve.  He noted that 9th grade is heterogeneous -- kids of all achievement levels are mixed.  This new approach will extend that with the hoped for result that more kids will do better in general, as well as have an opportunity to include honors classes on their transcripts.  he also said that A level classes were eliminated in 12th grade two years ago.

"The tenth and eleventh grades is a place that we really want to look at starting with that A level and get it heterogeneously mixed so we have a Regents group of students.," he said.  "We want to take a look at having the honors classes in tenth grade, and eleventh grade, and having the AP classes."

Faessler is currently compiling data on how students have performed in A level (struggling students), Regents English, and Honors.  Hartz said that she has provided some studies, and he wants to do more research before taking the next step.  He noted that the end of the school year is not the best time to make a change like this because it is so busy.  He said he and his staff will have more time to reflect on the program over the summer and Fall, and time for him to consult with Universities to best align the program with admissions expectations.  He also said he plans to hold another open meeting next school year before a decision is made on next steps.

Hartz says his ultimate goal is to give students more opportunities to succeed, to turn out more student with higher levels of achievement.  He said he'd love to add sections of honors English, which would have a side-effect that with more sections available at different times it will be easier to schedule high achieving students into them who might otherwise have missed out due to scheduling conflicts.

Questions and comments followed with some people seeming to favor the changes and others less willing to embrace them.  Teachers noted that this change in the English curriculum will likely mean changes in other departments later on.

"This is a much larger conversation than just the English department," said high school social studies teacher Dan Ferguson.  "This is a conversation that we as a faculty have to have.  It has definite impact on us.  When you try to track one class it has an impact on a school this small when you try to schedule it."

Hartz said that Lansing students do better than other students in the region already.  Eleventh grade English teacher Andie Huskey noted that it will be the same teachers who have been teaching these students all along, and they know the students and their needs.

"This is a different way we're doing it," Hartz concluded.  "This isnot a selection process.  This is open enrollment to encourage more students in.  I think we need to meet in November to start the conversation about how this is working.  I want to make sure that we're doing the right thing here.  There is almost nothing I won't listen to.  I am more than willing to start to work toward it as long as what we're doing is great for kids and it's going to make our kids the best they can be."

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