by Lauren Tsai . Business Manager |
Due to the new district bell schedule and a dwindling budget, many electives have been cut from the master schedule. Though they were offered on course cards, student preference determined which courses would remain available.
“We’re trying to offer all the classes that we did before, but there may not be as many. We put in just about every class that was possible,” Department Chair of Career and Technology Susan Staudt said. “If there weren’t enough students to enroll, we had to reconsider which ones to offer. It basically goes back to the number of kids enrolled in [a class].”
Several factors such as moving to a traditional schedule and new district mandates could have affected student decisions.
“When you leave the A/B schedule, you can no longer take 32 classes,” she said.
Also, courses weren’t necessarily offered under familiar names. Some of the more popular classes took different titles.
“The new name change and us registering in October threw everyone off,” Staudt said.
Graduation requirements no longer include a technology credit, and some technology courses have been cut. The Career and Technology Department seems to have been the hardest hit because the majority of electives fall under this department.
Business and Technology teacher Violet Snell regrets such decisions. She has been with the district for 25 years and, based on her experience, predicts the consequences of eliminating technology courses and requirements.
“It was a short-sighted decision because technology is so important no matter which area a student decides to pursue,” Snell said. “Some people ‘mistakenly’ feel that students already ‘know’ how to use the computer.”
Snell still emphasizes the importance of technology.
“To quote a colleague from another school, ‘Yes, these students know how to use Twitter, Facebook, text, and play on their phones and computers, but where will they learn the applications that major universities and corporations require such as advanced Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access?’.”
Andrea Reynoso • Jun 13, 2010 at 12:23 am
I agree that technology classes are important and that most students really only use the computer for twitter and facebook. But I don’t think that making them take an entire class to learn how to use programs such as Word and Powerpoint is necessary. I think that teachers could just assign homework and projects that would require having to use these programs. That way, students are physically seeing the advantages to using these programs.