BSGE grades typically are split into 3 “streams,” but this year the standard trend was broken. Many older students are wondering why there are three seventh grade classes. The Department of Education gives more funding to larger schools, and since we already have a small student body, we must maintain our size to get the proper funding we need. This is because of the number of 8th graders transferring out of BSGE for high school last year. Usually, around 20% of our students leave, but last year, 50% of the Class of 2019 left. The natural answer would be to accept more kids in order to keep the same amount of funding, and thus a new 7-4 stream was created.
Now, you may be wondering why we created a new 7-4 stream instead of accepting more ninth graders. The reason is that there were more 7th graders who passed the cutoff mark and managed to get into the school (or at least made the waiting list) than ninth graders who did. Additionally, the number of kids leaving this school fluctuates and we have to expect a sizable percentage to transfer out in 8th grade. Accepting more 7th graders assures that we will keep at least 500 kids in this school, regardless of how many decide to leave the next year.
The BACC Rag 