Advancing Tabor’s Academic Program

Tabor Academy’s academic program will look a little different come fall. These updates, Interim Dean of Academics Matt Voci shares, reflect months, and in some cases, years of preparation, development, and research. They also reflect collaboration between departments and an adherence to the school’s strategic plan. In a letter to families sent earlier this spring, Voci wrote that these changes “reflect our ability to expand access and opportunity for Tabor Academy students to a dynamic and challenging learning environment within and beyond the shores of Sippican Harbor and, as our school’s vision statement elaborates, provides opportunities to ‘explore innovative, ethical solutions to complex local and global challenges.’"

An Increase in Opportunity and Time Spent Together

This fall, Tabor students will move to a semester-based system from the current trimester-based system. Voci explains that semesters provide students and teachers with longer, more sustained engagement and a decrease in transitions between courses. With that shift in the calendar comes an opportunity to expand the range of courses available to students. With a broader selection of full-year and semester-length courses, students will be able to explore their interests and pursue academic challenges while also building balanced schedules. 

Notably, the shift allows a significant increase in honors-level courses, and for the introduction of semester-length advanced-level courses. Both provide opportunities for students to engage in high-level academic work across a wider range of disciplines. 

“We wanted to rethink how we were using student time,” Voci says. “We wanted students to have more opportunities to connect with their teachers. We wanted those relationships to be the hallmark of what we do as a school

Working Toward Clarity on Transcripts

Beginning in the fall, Tabor will also designate courses with a numbers-based level indicator. 100-level courses will be college preparatory-level; 200-level courses will be accelerated college preparatory; 300-level courses will be honors-level; and 400-level classes will be advanced. This, Voci says, will help college admission evaluators better understand the level of curriculum a student has received at Tabor. The school will also move from reporting numerical grades on transcripts to reporting letter grades. This provides a clear and consistent representation of a student’s performance and aligns with national norms.

New Programming Reflects Tabor’s Mission and Priorities

Four new initiatives highlight and support the ways in which Tabor prepares its students for the classroom, the world, and their communities.

First, next year marks the beginning of three pathways to graduation: Oceans, Global Education, and Leadership. “Students who join a pathway will access incredible opportunities in one of three core facets of the Tabor experience,” Voci wrote in his letter to families. Each pathway provides curricular, co-curricular, and external experiences and culminate in a summative presentation. The Pathways program is open to current ninth-graders and all future classes. The program is optional. 

Second, Tabor’s Saturday program, TX, will be reintroduced as an eight-week program designed to support and expand each student’s capacity to connect, serve, and lead. Intentional experiences beyond the traditional classroom are being designed to provide opportunities for personal growth and reflection. The TX program helps students become aware of how they impact their communities, hone their decision-making skills, and become leaders who can adapt to a rapidly changing society.

Third, the College Counseling office has formed a new advisory board to react to the ways in which the college admission landscape continues to evolve. The advisory board consists of admissions deans from the Ivy League, the New England Small College Athletic Conference, two leading women’s colleges whose admission leaders are widely recognized for advancing access, excellence, and diversity, and an R-1 research institution. The board will learn about Tabor’s students, curriculum, and culture, and provide feedback and advice on the school’s college counseling practices and communications. 

Fourth, Director of Global Education Jon Sirois has coordinated the inaugural Symposium by the Sea, a meeting of like-minded schools committed to learning with and from the sea. Representatives from schools in China, Japan, Spain and Denmark will join us on campus. Students and faculty will add to the conversation about local challenges that have a global impact and bring the fruits of this discourse back to their own classrooms. 

Voci says that initial reactions from families to these changes have been strong and positive. “Families have reached out to express an appreciation for the work done by our college counseling office, by academic council, by a lot of leadership at the school who had looked broadly across the scope of the program and made some shifts to recognize the hard work that the students are doing at Tabor,” he says. “we're excited about the changes.”