{"id":3857,"date":"2024-04-01T13:54:22","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T17:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/?p=3857"},"modified":"2024-04-01T13:54:22","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T17:54:22","slug":"howard-county-public-schools-convert-to-metric-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/howard-county-public-schools-convert-to-metric-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard County Public Schools Convert to Metric System"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>By Lauren Shin, Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An insider of the Howard County Public School System Board of Education contacted the River Hill Current last week to leave an anonymous tip, exposing the county\u2019s plans to abide by the metric system in all curriculums. Our source claims that the conversion to the metric system will begin this upcoming 2024-2025 school year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>America is one of only three nations who do not use the metric system, along with Myanmar and Liberia. The United States has attempted to move away from imperial units in the past, dating back to 1975, when they passed the Metric Conversion Act. This legislation aimed to bring the US up to speed with the rest of the world. As we know today, the US did not achieve the level of success they had hoped for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite proven failure to transition from the imperial system to the metric system, \u201cthe United States is planning to implement new policies that will actually be effective in switching over to the metric system this time, \u201d the anonymous tip stated.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the leaked February HCPSS Board of Education meeting minutes,&nbsp; high schoolers will now be required to take AP Statistics their freshman year, which will incorporate metric system lessons. Students must receive an A as their final grade and also score higher than a 5 on the AP exam as part of their graduation requirement. Failure to do so will result in a repeat of the Freshman year until the student is able to demonstrate mastery of the metric system.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Fisher, a history teacher here at River Hill, recalls having had to study the metric system in school after the passing of the 1975 Metric Conversion Act. \u201cMy teacher told me I had to learn the metric system because it was going to be used in America forever. It was a really big deal; I remember going home and sitting down, filling out my worksheet of metric conversion problems and studying for tests every day,\u201d he says. Having felt like he wasted his time and effort on learning an entirely new system that was never put into practice, Mr. Fisher expressed his delight for the soon-to-be implemented policy. \u201cI\u2019m glad I will finally be putting all the hours spent learning the metric system to use,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Others, however, were not thrilled to hear this news. Students like Amira Nova were indignant about having to learn a whole new system of measurement: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessary to switch to the metric system in the first place. We\u2019ve been using the imperial system for so long and there\u2019s nothing wrong with it. There\u2019s the saying \u2018Don\u2019t fix what isn\u2019t broken\u2019 for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cody Gostovich adds that \u201cit\u2019s not fair to the students, especially incoming Freshmen, because this can really throw off everything we\u2019ve learned so far. The expectations are too high; students possibly repeating a year is crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;AP Statistics teachers like Mr. Faber feel uneasy that they must carry the weight of teaching this new system. He shares that \u201cI don\u2019t know how they expect me to reconstruct my entire course curriculum and have it centered around the metric system. I\u2019ve been following the same teaching pace for the last 27 years of my career so that I finish teaching two weeks before AP exams, leaving just enough time for students to review. I don\u2019t know how I\u2019ll fit in a whole new topic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With so much uncertainty, all we can do is wait for their official announcement and hope that this new implementation will help enrich students\u2019 learning experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lauren Shin, Staff Writer An insider of the Howard County Public School System Board of Education contacted the River Hill Current last week to leave an anonymous tip, exposing the county\u2019s plans to abide by the metric system in all curriculums. Our source claims that the conversion to the metric system will begin this&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":3858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[510],"tags":[286,939,269,211,285,926],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-satire","tag-journalism","tag-metric-system","tag-rhhs","tag-river-hill","tag-river-hill-high-school","tag-satire"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/unnamed-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3859,"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions\/3859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}