West Shore has recently decided to follow College Board’s advice and is eliminating honors physics from the curriculum next year. Students will now have to decide between taking regular or AP physics instead of having the option to take the middle route with honors.

Regular and AP physics teacher John Krehbiel doesn’t think that the change will significantly affect students.

“For most kids who take honors [now], [AP] will probably be just fine,” Krehbiel said. “It’ll be a little harder, but not so much that it will make it a bad class.”

Students who are not sure whether to take the leap from regular to AP will have to decide whether the risk is worth it or not.

“Some kids who are struggling in honors might have trouble [in AP],” Krehbiel said. “If you’re really not sure, it’s probably better to just sign up for AP and see if you can do it. But if you have multiple other AP classes, then you probably want to go the easier route.”

Sophomore Justin Loomis, who is currently in regular chemistry, says his decision would have been the same with or without the change.

“I’m going to take AP [physics] because I want to better myself and I think a challenge is more beneficial to me,” Loomis said. “I might have taken honors, but I most likely would’ve taken AP in the end.”

On the other hand, sophomore Mika Bilicki says the schedule revision has altered her plans.

“I would have taken honors,” Bilicki said. “I wanted to take a more advanced class than regular, but not as hard as AP since I’m planning on taking other AP classes. Now I have to take AP physics too.”