This story originally appeared in the print edition of the Daily Post on Dec. 30. If you want the latest in local news, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto science teachers want to get rid of honors biology and instead group all freshmen in one introductory class.
Teachers are trying to get rid of a stigma around students taking lower-level courses and offer everyone the same learning opportunities, said Associate Superintendent of Educational Services Guillermo Lopez.
“Overall, (teachers) just felt that this was best for students, for their mental health. It minimizes stress, but it also provides them with the universal instructional approach,” Lopez said.
The Palo Alto Unified School District offered three biology courses to ninth graders — honors, advanced and regular — until the advanced class was eliminated in 2019.
Earlier this year, instructional leads at Palo Alto High School and Gunn High School started talking about going from two classes to one class, Lopez said.
“This has all been initiated and driven by our teachers,” Lopez said.
Students coming from middle school don’t usually know the difference between honors and standard biology, Lopez said.
They also don’t get a GPA boost for taking honors classes. That’s only for Advanced Placement, or AP courses, that can get students college credit.
Students could take different paths after finishing biology, like honors chemistry or physics in tenth grade, Lopez said.
Palo Alto High School has tried a hybrid offering this year that’s going well, Lopez said.
Superintendent Don Austin announced the proposal in his weekly update on Dec. 20.
Removing course tracking
“The proposed change aligns with (the district’s) goals by removing course tracking, preventing disruptive schedule changes and creating a more inclusive learning environment,” Austin said.
The board will consider approving the single biology course on Jan. 21, Lopez said.
It will be the first significant deliberation for a new board that took office on Dec. 17.
During their campaign, new board members Josh Salcman, Alison Kamhi and Rowena Chiu said they don’t want to limit advanced classes, although the conversation was more around math than science in Palo Alto.
Salcman said he hasn’t seen evidence that advanced classes hurt student’s mental health. Some students are “actual geniuses” and can take on an absurd amount of AP courses, he said during his campaign
Instead, Salcman said he wants to look at how students interact. For example, students have a habit of asking each other what score they got on tests, he said.
Eliminating honors can be controversial
In the Sequoia Union High School District, a decision to get rid of honors classes turned out to be controversial.
Over the past few years, the district’s four high schools have been eliminating advanced standing, or “AS,” courses for freshmen in hopes of creating a more level playing field.
Students who go to the district’s four comprehensive high schools — Carlmont, Menlo-Atherton, Woodside and Sequoia — come from eight different school districts with different levels of funding and outside support.
Over 80 students and parents spoke mostly against the change at a seven-hour meeting in September 2023. More than 900 people signed a petition asking the district to restore the advanced offerings.
Lopez said he hasn’t heard any pushback in Palo Alto, but the conversation so far has been among teachers who initiated the change.
Great idea! Dumb down the curriculum so that the slower students don’t feel badly about themselves and stress out. We may end up with an idiotracy, but at least we will all be equally dim-witted.
This is a really bad idea. PAUSD continues to steadily erode support for .
I had one of those kids, who took a lot of AP’s and honors classes and was not stressed or overworked etc, and we chose to put him in PAUSD because we believed in public schools. But I think today we would choose otherwise.
A system where rich academically-gifted kids go to private schools and learn to be challenged, while poor academically-gifted kids go to watered-down public schools and learn to be bored, is not in anybody’s long-term interest. PAUSD needs to be able to serve the whole spectrum of kids, not just the easiest set.
(And please do not start on “Differentiation” which is a load of marketing claptrap like “clean coal”.)
I wonder if Superintendent Don Austin will mention this at his next job interview.
Strange how not a single teacher is saying they want this.
“When everyone is Super, no on will be.” The Incredibles