No members of faculty nor Prefect Council attended the third of four open meetings to talk about AP limits, which was scheduled to take place Monday during Activities. Several students arrived and waited for members of the administration to arrive, but none showed up.
Administrators did attend a meeting during second period Monday.
Interim Head of Upper School Liz Resnick had scheduled meetings this week as opportunities for students to discuss their opinions about the school’s proposed limit on AP classes, and the potential elimination of weighted grades.
Assistant to the Head of Upper School Michelle Bracken said that Resnick attended the meeting hosted by Prefect Council to address diversity and inclusivity during the same time, and due to logistical errors, students were not informed that the meeting to discuss limits had been cancelled.
Some students saw the the administration’s negligence of the meeting as a reflection of their disregard for the issues that were to be discussed.
“I think it’s very rude that the administration didn’t show up to our meeting because they emailed us, and this is a serious topic,” Marcus Leher ’18 said. “We took time out of our day when we could have been doing work, and we came here to discuss this important issue with them, but they didn’t come.”
Leher has been circulating a petition against the proposed limit. He emailed the petition to administrators and was encouraged to attend the meetings in response.
Bracken took the fault for not emailing students ahead of time that the meeting had been cancelled, and said that it does not reflect a disinterest by the administration in hearing students’ opinions.
“The fact that Ms. Resnick did not show up for the meeting should’ve been communicated to the students via email by me and was not ‘blown off’ by anyone,” Bracken said. “Ms. Resnick scheduled four periods to meet with students to discuss the limits and is very interested in hearing what students have to say.”
However, some students expressed concern that their opinions were not going to be heard because the conversation had not taken place.
“I just feel like it would have been a very constructive meeting, and I think we would have gotten a lot out of it, both the students and the administration, so I think it’s a shame that the meeting wasn’t able to occur,” Paul Leclerc ’18 said.
Bracken said that she is working to reschedule the meeting and find a time when many students have free periods.
Most students who attended the meeting said that they were against the school’s proposal to limit the number of AP classes that students can take and wanted to share their concerns with the administration.
“I just think that if our parents are paying so much money to the school, it’s not really fair to limit people,” Mila Fejzo’19 said. “Even if I’m not one of the people that can take a million honors classes, I don’t think it’s fair to the people who can. I just wanted to express my opinions about this issue.”
Several students attended who weren’t strongly opposed to the proposition of limiting APs. Carissa Edwards-Mendez ’19 said that she came to support a friend who felt passionately about this issue.
“It won’t affect me so I don’t personally feel strongly about it, but I understand why other people are upset because it’s not allowing them to take the classes that they want to take,” Mendez said. “It’s really frustrating because if they want to be able to take these classes and learn these things, then why is the school inhibiting them and not allowing them to do that?”
The next and final meeting is scheduled for seventh period Wednesday in the Emery Room.
