Kaneland High School is expanding its weighted grading system to include honors classes, and adding some new courses for the 2026-27 school year, Kaneland School District 302 recently announced.
Currently, the district applies a weighted grading system for Advanced Placement and dual credit courses, a news release from the district noted.
But, starting next school year, all 11 honors courses the district offers will be on a weighted grading scale, they said in the release. Those courses are: Algebra 1 Honors, Geometry Honors, Algebra 2 Honors, Food Science Honors, Madrigals/Chamber Choir Honors, Music Theory 2 Honors, English 9 Honors, English 10 Honors, Journalism 2 Honors, Journalism 3 Honors and Spanish 4 Honors.
All of those courses are existing offerings, with the exception of Algebra 1 Honors, which will be new starting next year, according to a district presentation.
“These enhancements across multiple departments underscore our dedication to fostering a rigorous and relevant educational experience,” Kaneland Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning James Horne said in the news release. “The expansion of weighted grading to our honors classes is a crucial step in recognizing our students’ hard work and better positioning them for competitive college admissions.”
Students selecting their courses will see some other changes starting in the fall of 2026.
For example, the district is offering new dual credit options for high-schoolers: a first-year English composition course, and AP Chemistry, which will be newly designated as dual credit, the district news release noted. The district is also adding AP Pre-Calculus to the curriculum, and will be offering AP Microeconomics annually due to increased demand. The high school will also have a transitional English course meant to place students directly into college-level English courses after completing the class.
Kaneland is also launching new electives — and updating some existing courses.
For example, starting in the 2026-27 school year, Kaneland High School will have a new Career and Technical Education course on web design and development, the news release said. The school will also be offering its child development course every year and changing the name of the current animal nutrition course to Veterinary Science.
Additionally, the district is revising current environmental science content into a new semester-long elective called EcoSphere, per the release. It is also making the general biology course into a full-year life science class and removing the term “enhanced” from the full-year chemistry and physics classes.
And, at Kaneland Harter Middle School, students in eighth-grade Spanish will be able to earn high school credit.
Lastly, the district is changing some of the prerequisites for a few of the high school classes.
For example, Pre-Calculus now requires students to first complete Algebra 2, the news release said. The school will strongly recommend students hoping to take AP Biology complete Chemistry first, and complete or be concurrently enrolled in Algebra 2 in order to take AP Chemistry and AP Physics 1. And AP Government will, starting in the fall of 2026, be limited to seniors only.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com