High School To Replace "Freshman" With "First Year Student" To Be More Gender Inclusive

High School To Replace “Freshman” With “First Year Student” To Be More Gender Inclusive

Easthampton High School will replace the term “freshman” with “first-year student” in a bid to more gender inclusive. The school had started to refer to its ninth-grade student...

Published 19 Dec 2017

Billy Praise

Easthampton High School will replace the term “freshman” with “first-year student” in a bid to more gender inclusive.

The school had started to refer to its ninth-grade students as first years this past Thursday and asked its students to do the same. The change was suggested to the student handbook committee by the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance Group, an organization whose aim is to the handbook’s language more inclusive.

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The revised edition of the handbook now reads,

“For the purpose of class meetings and activities, including the class dues, students will be considered first years, sophomores, juniors, and seniors.”

This development elicited reactions on Twitter, some of which are shown below.

https://twitter.com/rsobelexaminer/status/942991545107705856

Since you are so politically sensitive, how about changing the name of your high school from “Easthampton” High School to “East Hampton” so as not to insult the history of the cardinal directions?
— Wisconsinsane (@wisconsinsane) December 19, 2017