Dear members of the Northampton community, as a Math Department at Northampton High School, we believe you should be informed of the following as you interpret public discussion about embedding honors within the Integrated Math courses at the high school.
Embedded honors is, in part, about helping students move from a “fixed” mindset of thinking they are good or bad at math to a “growth” mindset, understanding that they can improve their math abilities with practice. By virtue of being in mixed classes, students may see more challenging math work and discover they are ready for and interested in that challenge. Students are enabled to make informed decisions about whether to enroll in honors based on appropriate challenge level rather than identifying with a particular peer group. Since this change, the number of students who are choosing to enroll in honors has increased from previous years.
The teachers of the Math Department initiated, supported and continue to support the move to embedded honors and were fully aware of its implementation heading into the 2020-2021 school year. Most of that year was spent entirely online and the community trusted us to innovate amid incredibly challenging conditions.
This plan was presented to the School Committee and has already been approved. Twice. It was first approved in February of last year for the current 2021-2022 school year and was approved again for next school year this past February. Principal Lori Vaillancourt shared a newsletter with caregivers about the change to embedded honors last spring.
Because last school year began remotely and then slowly shifted to hybrid in the spring, this is the first year we are implementing embedded honors in person. As a result, there is minimal data from our school, other than anecdotal feedback from parents and students, which runs the full range of “my child is loving it” to “my child isn’t feeling sufficiently challenged.” This feedback is similar to feedback we have received before embedding honors. As teachers, we are seeing a wider diversity of ideas being discussed in our embedded honors classes than in either of our separated courses in the past, enabling a richer learning experience for everyone in the room.
This is happening in (and the debate is about) exactly three courses right now: Integrated Math 1, Integrated Math 2, and Integrated Math 3. Starting next year, precalculus classes will also have embedded honors. Students take anywhere from three to eight math courses during their time at NHS.
No student is being held back from any Advanced Placement coursework, ever. We have, in fact, added AP courses to our department’s offerings, and enrollment has grown in those courses over time.
Giving every individual student an appropriate level of challenge and support is and has always been the ideal. Under any circumstances, this is a difficult ideal to meet. Those difficulties don’t go away when students are leveled into two different tracks and told they belong in one, not the other. Serving a diversity of students in the same classroom is an aspect of teaching that we have been trained on, and will continue to train on.
Some members of the community are resistant to change and innovation in our schools. Similar public debates erupted when the Science Department eliminated Honors Biology, when we made the switch from the traditional course progression of Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2 to the current integrated model, and again when the district implemented a full inclusion special education model at our elementary schools. Yet each of these changes were made thoughtfully and with approval of district leadership.
The current debate is born out of the report written by former School Committee member Susan Voss after she made a public records request to read our internal staff emails, chats and meeting notes. There was no attempt by member Voss or anyone on the current or previous School Committee to reach out to any member of the Math Department (which can be done through the superintendent’s office) to discuss embedded honors. The only outreach we are aware of was from member Kaia Goleman, who requested information from Principal Vaillancourt, who then collaborated with members of the department to prepare a document in response to her questions.
Member Voss’s report, which was put together without speaking with any of the math teachers and which misinterprets many of our communications, is now playing out in an entirely different direction, and as a consequence, a hard-working educational professional’s career has been put in question. What hasn’t been so public is that member Voss’s report has also destabilized the morale and culture at NHS, just as we are working to establish a sense of normalcy for our students who have already dealt with the most absurd two years of school possible.
We are and have always been open to conversation about embedded honors and any other aspects of our teaching practice. We wish that member Voss (and others from current and previous school committees) had reached out for a conversation instead of digging through our emails and publishing a deeply flawed and misleading report to the public.
We chose and want to continue this teaching initiative. We will continue to consult the research on this topic, hear feedback from students and caregivers, and collect data, and we will make changes to our practice according to what that shows us. We are trained educators and we love your kids. We have them in mind, first and foremost, and your support would allow us to focus on them.
This column is signed by the entire NHS Math Department: Beth Adams, Dylan Boyd, Eli Chastek, Heather Fuller, Randy Gordon, Brant Jones, Allison Keefe, Ester Locke, Anisa Schardl and Rachel Stavely Hale.