When freshman Claire Middleton found out the school will allow next year’s freshmen to decide the honors classes they want to take, she hoped for more balanced schedules.

“I think it’s a good idea because some people don’t work well with having all three honors classes and they might have different strengths and weaknesses,” Middleton said.

Ninth grade counselor Barb Nelson said the school representatives discussed the lack of diversity in honors classes for the past few years.

“We have talked a lot about it in the past two to three years and felt like the timing was right to try to encourage more students to try one or two (honors) classes,” Nelson said.

Freshman Reagan Brown, an honors student, said she wished she had the opportunity to select her honors courses.

“I didn’t like that I couldn’t pick and choose my classes. It’s better for students to choose classes they are good at,” Brown said.

Nelson said the school may keep blocks but change the scheduling and configuration.

“There actually still may be a block or team that is all honors — it just depends on the numbers that sign up for each class,” Nelson said.

Nelson said the benefits of allowing freshmen to choose their honors classes include decreased workload and higher grades.

“I am hopeful that it will bring more balance to students, and we will be seeing less students so stressed out by their academic load,” Nelson said. “We are allowing them to take the amount of high-level courses they want so they can be successful, which should lead to better results.”

Ninth grade honors civics teacher Brad Brubaker said he thinks the change may have some shortcomings.

“My concern is really getting rid of the blocking and team teachers. (The current system) decreases student failing rate and we would, as a team, talk to students who are struggling,” Brubaker said.

Nelson said the school also plans on getting rid of the support block next year because it tends to racially separate students.

“The main reason for dismantling the support, or applied block, as we started calling it, was that it was racially segregating our students,” Nelson said. “This year especially almost all the students were students of color, so it is not representative our of student body.”

Nelson said she hopes to experiment with changes this fall.

“We are going to see how many kids sign up in each area and then work to arrange the blocks or teams of students,” Nelson said. “Once students turn in summer homework and we have final numbers, we will see how easy or difficult this task may be. I am confident with our administration.”