A look into the new course policy and recent shifting of student schedules
On Oct. 3, Seattle Public Schools students faced sudden unexpected schedule changes. The reason: the Washington state Rigorous Course Policy.
This policy caused disruption in Roosevelt High School advanced classes, causing many to be switched into honors or Advanced Placement language arts, mathematics, and science classes — in accordance with the Seattle Public Schools’ Policy 2194 (created in compliance with state law RCW 28A.320.195.)
The policy, issued on Mar. 16, states: “The district shall automatically enroll any student who meets or exceeds the state standard on the eighth-grade or high school English language arts or mathematics statewide student assessment in the next most rigorous level of advanced courses or program offered by the high school.”
Roosevelt Principal Tami Brewer explained that the Office of the Superintendent noticed inequitable patterns where certain racial and ethnic populations would self-select out of advanced courses. “There’s a systemic problem that we are not getting access to those advanced learning opportunities for our students of color who are furthest from educational justice,” she said.
The state set a deadline of the 2021-2022 school year for the district to correct the problem. According to Principal Brewer, SPS responded by running the testing data which came through late into the summer.
SPS’s delayed process affected the planning of student schedules. Brewer explained, “It hit us really hard … We were planning [schedules] way back in the spring. The law hadn’t even come through yet. … It was very hard on kids, families, and students to start school and have those changes coming through, … it was a really stressful thing.”
Because of the policy’s late implementation at the start of the school year, 57 Roosevelt students had to be put into advanced classes to meet the law — with 112 students needing to be moved overall — according to Brewer.
Brewer recognized there were some logistical challenges caused by the late changes to comply with the law: “When we change schedules in the system, … the minute I pull [a student’s] schedule out, if that’s happening during a school day, [they] try to go to classes, teachers don’t have [them] on their roll, they can’t mark [their] attendance. It doesn’t jive with the system.”
Brewer explained, “We had to strategically plan for this to happen over a weekend. We also had to communicate with teachers and tell them, you’re not teaching this class, third period, you’re teaching this class second period. … This was particularly hitting math. They had to know what classes they were changing to and from and what periods we needed to open. So they had to be on board. And then we had to plan it over a weekend. So the date [Oct. 3] came about because of this.”
With sudden late changes to their schedules, affected students had mixed responses. Roosevelt junior Leah Abraham commented on her experience with the change from precalculus to precalculus honors, “I was okay with it because I wanted another honors class. I [just] wish it had happened sooner, especially because I didn’t know that there was an honors class for pre-calc.”
Abraham continued, “Last year, they told us there wouldn’t be [any honors classes]. [If I knew,] I would have tried to switch into it sooner.”
Another anonymous student explained, “I wish [the change] had happened sooner because I missed the whole first unit [of my class].”
Brewer responds with her own thoughts on the issue, “Did I like doing this? No, because it’s disruptive to your world, and I believe in stability. And in my perfect high school, … you start on day one with your exact schedule, how it is, all your teachers start that relationship on day one, and they’re with you for the entirety [of the school year]. And this type of [schedule change] is very disruptive. … But I also follow the law.”
Despite her disappointment with the delayed implementation of the policy, Brewer believes the policy represents positive change: “The best thing about all of this is that we are actually making sure that every student that has the capability knows that they’re an honor student, if they choose, not making stereotypes or perpetuating both racist or classist ideas in our system.”
She concluded, “So I think for me, the best part of this was seeing that our laws are actually aligning with this now, which helps us disrupt some of these kinds of systems that have been racist and have been classist. And that’s great, because I think that also sets up a better future.”
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