To the editor:

I went to the School Committee meeting the other night to learn once and for all why we can’t have honors English classes for 9th and 10th graders anymore. According to Principal Hurley, however, you can’t just jump right into the answering. Nope. You have to start with all the AP classes offered for the 11th and 12th graders. Those are great, and they’re going to add even more, so don’t you worry one bit. Also, for the 9th and 10th graders, there’s honors math and honors science, and those are just great, too. I was nodding my head and following right along, but when Mr. Hurley got to the slide that would finally explain everything, it suddenly became clear that ordinary words weren’t up to the task. He was forced to say whole sentences of complicated jargon that had me gripping at my armrests and hanging on tight. 

As near as I could tell, the reason they had to get rid of those honors classes was because they were afraid of something called the “Knee Ask”. Now, as someone who’s torn his own meniscus, I admit that it sounds bad. 

It turns out that before the 11th grade, kids can’t handle any stress at all. Except for math and science. Math and science stress is the good kind, like good cholesterol, while honors English stress is like that chicken-fried steak kind of cholesterol that these kids just can’t handle. Bad for the knees, I guess.

But Mr. Hurley assured us that there is hope, because something magical happens in the summer between 10th and 11th grade. The kids wake up one morning and, SHAZAM, they’ve been transformed. They can now handle even the chicken-fried steak kind of stress. They can take a full load of AP classes and shoulder the added stress of competing against a bunch of kids from East Greenwich whose principal didn’t give a plug nickel about protecting anyone’s knees. 

I was starting to get it at that point, but then came the part of the meeting when all the people up on the stage cross their arms and look at the ceiling. That was when, one after another, the citizens of the town got up to the microphone to squawk about how worried they were about their kid’s education, or how they felt ignored, or lied to, and honestly, it was a bit of a wet blanket. It made it sound like the men in suits up there at the administration table might have made a mistake. There was someone else sitting there, too, but she was hiding at the back and didn’t say a single word throughout the entire night, so I don’t think she had anything to do with it. 

All in all, it was a good show, and I might even write another letter about it, but my knee’s starting to ache now, probably from that Honors English class that I foolishly took back in 9th grade. You live and learn.

Mike Kelley

Barrington