Classical High School in Providence once again had a banner year in SAT scores, posting the highest proficiency rate in the state in English (90.9 percent) and the third-best proficiency rate in math (68.1 percent).

Now the gold standard school is making a long overdue change to its annual admissions policy: it’s offering the test in Spanish.

The Providence school department announced this week Classical will offer the test in both English and Spanish for the first time this year. The district previously allowed multilingual learners to use a Spanish dictionary and gave them more time to complete the exam.

Classical’s admissions tests for the 2026-2027 school year are scheduled for Oct. 18, Oct. 23, and Oct. 25.

The bigger picture: Classical is a gem in an otherwise struggling school district, but the one stain on its record has been its past resistance to offering more multilingual learners a realistic path to acceptance.

Nearly 40 percent of all Providence students are multilingual learners, but last school year, fewer than 1 percent of Classical's students taking the PSAT or SAT were considered multilingual learners.

Education Commissioner Angélica Infante-Green has quietly lobbied to offer the admissions exam in languages other than English for several years, but she didn’t push the issue publicly because the state-controlled district had more pressing challenges.