With next year’s course selection just around the corner for Langley students, the FCPS Board has chosen to make a few last minute changes to the spectrum of courses offered to high school students. With the addition of honors courses in English and History 11 and 12, as well as an honors World History option for sophomores, the county is attempting to accommodate the needs of students of all academic levels.

Junior Jody Kim agrees that the course addition would provide a happy medium for hesitant students. “I think Langley students will benefit from this change because then there’s a class that’s not as hard as AP, yet not as easy as regular.”

While exact guidelines for the courses have not yet been laid out, teachers expect that the curriculum will be somewhere in between that of regular and AP, most likely leaning more toward the AP side since the same textbook will be used. 

As for the amount of GPA points added for students who participate in these courses, all of them will follow the extra .5 rule as current honors math and science classes do now. While the .5 bump is a nice addition compared to years ago, when harder courses were not rewarded with a GPA edition, students debate whether or not this benefit outweighs the workload.

“I feel like honors is going to be really similar to AP and you want the 1 point bump over the .5 bump if you’re going to do the same amount of work,” said junior Catherine Baek.

But junior Ashley Pyon sees the GPA addition as an extra advantage, saying, “I think Langley students would benefit from having honors because you can get an extra .5 on your GPA and you have another option if you think regular is too easy and AP is too hard.”

While this late addition to the course catalog may make scheduling more difficult, as well as force teachers to scramble to write new curriculums by September, it will also provide a alternative route for those previously caught between struggling in AP or flying through regular.