WEST LONG BRANCH — To compete with the county’s career academies, Shore Regional High School (SRHS) has begun to expand its honors program to include incoming freshmen.
The Shore Regional High School Board of Education at its Jan. 24 meeting approved the addition of an honors biology class for freshmen. Admission to the class, which will be limited to 24 students, will involve tests and recommendations from the student’s sending school district.
The honors biology course will be a year long and carry six credits.
The sending districts to Shore Regional are West Long Branch, Oceanport and Monmouth Beach. Sea Bright children attend Oceanport schools.
The Board of Education also approved the addition to the curriculum of a semester-long SAT prep math course, a semester-long SAT prep verbal course and a semester-long sociology course. All will be 2.5 credits.
School Superintendent Leonard G. Schnappauf said the addition of the honors course for freshmen was aimed at attracting to Shore Regional all of the top students from the schools in the regional district. He said honors offerings for freshmen will be expanded further in the future.
"Some choose other schools," Schnappauf noted in an interview. "We feel we have to upgrade out honors courses so we don’t lose students to the career academies. We want them to choose us. We feel we can compete."
The career academies he referred to are four high schools operated by the Monmouth County Vocational School District. They are the Marine Academy of Science and Technology at Sandy Hook, High Technology High School in Middletown, the Academy of Allied Health and Science in Neptune, and Communications High School in Wall.
Every year Shore Regional High School loses about 16 students to the county career academies, Schnappauf said.
"These are youngsters who do well academically," he said.
Schnappauf said the honors courses also are being increased in response to pressure from parents.
"Parents have come in and asked us to develop a more rigorous curriculum," he said. "We really believe we have an exceptional school, and we want to respond to the parents."
Shore Regional was mailing letters to parents of children in the fourth and eighth grades in the three sending districts on the day after the board approved the honors biology course, informing them of the increased offerings.
Board member Ted Szczurek said eighth-grade parents were informed about the impending addition of the honors biology course during orientation.
"They were extremely impressed," he reported. "They were happy to hear about the additional honors course coming down.
"It’s getting to be like going to college. You check out the campus and the curriculum," he added.
More and more, Szezurek said, colleges are looking for honors and advanced placement courses students have taken in weighing the applications for entrance they receive from high school students.
Schnappauf said seniors at Shore Regional have a choice of honors courses, but the school decided it needed to increase the lower-grade-level courses, thus the honors biology course was introduced. He said all other freshmen take college prep-environmental science, "Earth and the Environment."
"Ninety-seven percent of our students go off to secondary education," he said.
Szezurek said the sociology course being added to the curriculum represents the return of a subject that was cut from the school’s offerings years ago.
He said there would be a "pecking order" for admission to the SAT preparation courses, with juniors getting first preference.
The board also approved a change in the name of two courses. "Writing for the Mass Media" became "Journalism" and "Creative Writing" became "Creative Expressions." Also, a geography unit was added to "World Cultures."