BY JOHNNY MULLIGAN
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After an initiative from Roseville High School’s administrators, RHS department heads have been meeting in order to streamline the course selection guide by eliminating some of the offerings that do not generate much student interest. They hope to adjust the guide in order to more accurately represent the classes available to students.
“I would say that there has been a frustration in terms of students requesting things and then they don’t get that elective,” English department coordinator Amy Mowrer said. “We are trying to make the master schedule and the student schedule as clean and predictable as we can at the beginning of the year.”
Many classes are currently offered in the course selection guide, but some of them are not potential classes due to either a lack of interest from students or lack of having a teacher to teach those classes. For example, Accounting and Sports and Entertainment Marketing are likely to trimmed from the business class selection offerings.
According to Patricia Leong, VAPA department head, within her department there will not be major changes. In the ceramics program’s higher levels there is discussion for the classes like 3D printing and Sculpture to be formed into one class. Classes such as art, guitar and dance will not be seeing changes due to their popularity. The new musical class – beginning Piano Lab – will be taught by band director Mark Toffelmier in the spring.
“There are additions as well as subtractions to the course catalogue and just simplifying what the offerings are,” Leong said.
Leong believes that electives are important to help students express themselves and also to give them insight into what the future could be like for them.
“When a kid comes in and doesn’t know what to take it helps to have a better description,” Leong said. “If you have a descriptive thing that is a little more inviting it’s easier for them to be brave enough to take that class.”
According to business department head Ron Volk, classes such as Computer Apps are in jeopardy of being pushed out of curriculum because of an administrative push for AP classes.
“They need some good electives,” Volk said. “The whole idea of electives is to give students ideas and thoughts about what they might want to pursue.”
Volk’s classes have potential to be cut even though they are meant to give students a better idea of what they have planned for their future. He also thinks that electives are important to take stress off students who take many difficult classes.
“The core classes are gonna be filled and there is no way they are gonna eliminate a core class,” Volk said. “The ones that are of most concern are the elective teachers because they could decide not to put kids into the class [they teach].”
The English department has three electives in the course selection guide, Film and Lit, English Magazine and Speech and Debate. All of these classes will be kept in the book and will be taught if enough students request to be in the class.
“We have electives on the books that we don’t really have any intention of offering,” Mowrer said. “We talked about eliminating that from the course selection guide because it is misleading to students.”
Due to the CAHSEE being discontinued, the Critical reading and Writing class is no longer available because it was meant to prepare students for the CAHSEE.
“We did some language cleaning up for our intervention course and some cleanup for our electives,” Mowrer said.