Timpview has a serious case of brain drain; intelligent students, perfectly capable of taking honors classes, are wasting their potential in normal classes. Vice principal Ms. Huntsman attributed this to “the fear of not obtaining an A”.

“That has an impact on their GPA, but colleges really just want to see that you challenged yourself. They take a lot more than GPA into consideration,” Ms. Huntsman explained. While it’s definitely true that fears about GPA affect some students’ decision to not go into honors, the issue is a lot more complex than administrators understand. There’s a culture surrounding honors classes, and a lot of students feel like they don’t belong, regardless of their actual abilities.

When asked if honors classes or normal classes were more representative of the student body, Ms. Hammer replied, “I feel like neither is representative, there’s a pretty wide divide”. The students in her normal classes aren’t very participatory, either. “ I do a lot of cold calling, they’re hard to engage.”

One reason for the divide is pretty clear; economic standing. Middle upper class students take honors classes; people with less money don’t. A lot of poor students are intimidated by honors classes and the people in them, or feel like they wouldn’t fit in. Because they don’t fit in. But if everybody tried harder to make people feel included, then they would. We need a change in culture and attitude, for everybody’s benefit.