BARRINGTON -- If any of your children go to the middle school, don’t look for their names in the local newspaper to see if they made the honor roll last semester.

Barrington Middle School has decided to end its long tradition of producing an honor roll in an effort to downplay the significance of letter grades and reduce student and parent anxiety. The change -- for students in seventh and eighth grades -- does not affect the high school.

“BMS has engaged in several years of learning around mindfulness and effective assessment strategies with leading experts in the field. We know that the middle school age student faces a number of social, academic, and emotional changes,” Principal Andrew Anderson wrote in letter to middle school families this week. “The traditional honor roll does not acknowledge the whole student and is not an effective measure or representation of success.”

Supt. Michael Messore said that Barrington schools have been reviewing their practices with an eye toward reducing stress. That has led to changes, for example, in how much homework students are assigned and when they are assigned it.

At the middle school, in particular, letter grades and honor rolls have no bearing on students’ future high school transcripts, which can determine acceptance into college, Messore said. Yet some middle school students and their parents get overly anxious about report cards and honor rolls.

“Students coming from elementary school into middle school all of a sudden start worrying about the grades,” he said. “Let’s not miss the point of why we are here and what we are learning about.”

Already, there is shift in Barrington away from letter grades at the middle school level. The sixth grade has begun assessing students not with letter grades, but on whether they are meeting standards. That, said Messore, could migrate to the upper middle school grades in future years, as has taken place at other Rhode Island schools, including Middletown and Coventry, many years ago.

In explaining the honor roll decision, Anderson wrote to families, “This decision came out of committee work, conversations around grading, and ultimately what is best for all students, not just some students. This decision is also supported by a body of research that emphasizes the learning process. A traditional honor roll is counter-intuitive to that core fundamental belief.

“BMS will continue to celebrate students who demonstrate academic, civic, and social expectations through frequent and year-end recognition ceremonies.”

He noted that BMS has been named a Blue Ribbon School and was a state education commissioner’s “commended school” in 2015 and 2016.

The following is the full text of Principal Anderson’s letter:

The following information is in reference to yesterday's Barrington Middle School's newsletter.

This year, Barrington Middle School (BMS) made the decision to not post traditional honor roll reports. This decision came out of committee work, conversations around grading, and ultimately what is best for all students, not just some students. This decision is also supported by a body of research that emphasizes the learning process. A traditional honor roll is counter-intuitive to that core fundamental belief. BMS will continue to celebrate students who demonstrate academic, civic, and social expectations through frequent and year-end recognition ceremonies.

BMS has engaged in several years of learning around mindfulness and effective assessment strategies with leading experts in the field. We know that the middle school age student faces a number of social, academic, and emotional changes. The traditional honor roll does not acknowledge the whole student and is not an effective measure or representation of success.

As you are aware, over the past couple of years, BMS has made a number of shifts with regards to its grading practices. These shifts included instituting a redo/retake protocol that gives students an opportunity to show what he/she has mastered, implementing a district-wide homework policy, transitioning to trimesters to provide extended opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery, emphasizing that zeros are not an option, and involving students in the reflective learning processes. As a reminder, next year, we will be shifting towards standards-based reporting beginning with the 6th grade. The new reporting will allow us to provide parents with information regarding both students’ content mastery and their ability to apply their learning.

Our focus has always been, and will always be, on the students’ learning experience. In fact, it is due to these beliefs that Barrington Middle School has been recognized as a Blue Ribbon School and a Commissioner of Education’s Commended School (2015 and 2016). As noted above, we will continue to recognize and celebrate the students who have demonstrated mastery, shown academic growth, and engage deeply with the learning process through school-wide celebrations and acknowledgments in ways that are more meaningful than averaged scores.

Sincerely,

Andrew Anderson