Submitted by Riona McKersie, GHS class of 2026
My name is Riona McKersie and I am a current Sophomore at Greenwich High School. I have been taking Latin for two years (Latin 1 and 2) and it has quickly become one of my favorite classes. I have founded, and am the current president of the Latin Club and together with the other officers, this club works to bring together students who are interested in learning about the culture of Ancient Rome. We are working to bring the Latin National Honor Society to GHS.
Thus, to say I was surprised when I received an email earlier last week saying that Latin would no longer be offered at GHS and instead would be a pass/fail online course, would be an understatement.
Removing Latin from a high school curriculum, especially a school as prestigious as GHS, is short-sighted and will severely disadvantage the students who are currently taking Latin, through their GPAs, college applications, and the disruption of having to change languages.
At GHS, World Language is a three year requirement. However, colleges love to see students who are consistent in one language. If Latin is removed from GHS, students may not feel comfortable with an online only language only available Pass/Fail, and if they are a rising sophomore, junior or senior, then the only other option is to change languages. Certain colleges that they would have gotten into otherwise, had they continued with Latin, won’t accept them anymore. Beyond this, Latin is essential to many careers, such as law, medicine and even history. Students in the Latin classes who wish to pursue those jobs, will be disadvantaged as colleges looking at their transcripts will want to determine what steps they have made to be successful in those careers in the future.
Latin also creates community among students at GHS, making a large school seem much smaller. As Lilia Vine, a current Latin 2 student at GHS, said, “…it’s plain to see that Latin is interesting to a certain kind of person, [which] builds an incredible community of like-minded people that I don’t typically meet outside of the Latin world.”
To quote Bettina Gunnerson, a current Honors Latin Seminar student, at GHS, “It was the fact that the GHS offered Latin as a language choice that ultimately helped me discover one of my passions. After all, high school should be a place where people can discover their interests, so why take away one of those choices by eliminating Latin?”
To quote the GHS website, “Latin isn’t dead; it is alive everywhere you look.” So, we implore Greenwich Public Schools to keep it alive.