NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Drury High School's honor societies will take into account access to early college when calculating grades. 

 

The School Committee last Tuesday approved new language in the student handbook that reflect the changes.

 

"We were talking about how honor roll and Pro Merito and Nu Sigma is calculated, and we realized that even though we have weighted GPAs for taking more difficult courses for our students, we didn't actually factor that into who was eligible for honor roll or the Honor Society," Principal Stephanie Kopala explained to the committee last week. 

 

The school's always used unweighted averages in determining honor roll status and who is inducted into the Honor Society, which predates the National Honor Society. On the other hand, class rank has used weighted grades.

 

Since Drury has become an early college high school and Kopala said the majority of students are now taking college classes as high school students "and we're not factoring in the fact that they're taking these challenging courses."

 

"They might not necessarily be getting that 3.5 or that 4.0 average that they would have gotten if they had taken honors or AP classes, which is why we put the weighting in to our factoring for valedictorian, salutatorian," she said. "We realized that this was actually very inequitable for a lot of our students."

 

Most high school use a weighted grade-point average and the Drury administration was requesting a policy change to reflect that. 

 

"We also wanted to clarify how you get the honors stole and the honors plaques at graduation for our graduating seniors, as well as our early college plaques, because that wasn't actually listed anywhere in our handbook, and that caused some confusion for our students," the principal said. 

 

The new language will give no weight to regular classes; a 0.3 to college preparatory and project-based classes; and a 0.9 to Advanced Placement and college classes. Eighth-graders taking higher level courses will get 0.6.

 

Weighted high honors will require a GPA of 3.7 or higher and honors a GPA of 3 to 3.69.

 

Pass/fail classes and peer mentoring do not count and any failing grade or incomplete will disqualify a student for that term and for induction in the honor societies. This will apply to middle school as well. 

 

Superintendent Timothy Callahan said the changes won't have much of an impact on Grades 7 and 8 because they don't have as many course options. 

 

Honor tassels will be awarded based on seniors' GPA at the end of the fall semester; high honors will also get a stole and plaque. 

 

School Committee member Alyssa Tomkowicz, who works in admissions at Bennington (Vt.) College, said it makes sense. "I will say this is a very standard way of doing a weighted GPA. So I think this is, this looks good to me, in maybe professional opinion."

 

Kopala said this will be implemented for the graduating class and induction into the honor societies this spring. 

 

In other business, the committee approved the appointment of Gordon Tower as acting facilities director as Robert Flaherty will be out for an extended leave. 

 

• The committee approved a 3 percent increase in tuition rates for the 2026-2027 school year. Regular education will rise from $14,690 to $15,131 and special education from $26,478 to $27,272. This increase will also affect specialized programming, the summer Sunshine Camp, and the four-week prekindergarten summer program, which will go from $4,152 to $4,277. 

 

• The committee approved the standard tuition agreement with the North Berkshire School Union, for the towns of Clarksburg, Florida and Monroe, to accept its secondary students. 

 

Members asked how this affected students Grades 7 and 8, who sometimes start middle school at Drury, and how the 3 percent was determined. 

 

"My understanding is that when it happens [with middle school] with these three towns that requires special permission, and when it has happened that has gone before School Committee on a case-by-case basis," said Callahan. "We had actually researched this way back to somewhere in the mid-70s, and 3 percent is consistently the increase that the school committee has consistently approved."

 

• The committee accepted a $600 donation to Brayton Elementary and $942.06 donation to Colegrove Park Elementary School from the Williams College Center for Learning Action for school programs; and $250 from Northeast Sustainable Energy Association for art supplies at Drury for the Berkshire Art Show.