Curriculum Guide 2019-2020 on the Way
Course Selection for school year 2019-2020 is about to begin . . .
Although we have just passed the halfway point of the school year, we are just about to start getting students set up for courses next year. The Curriculum Guide for 2019-20 will be coming your way soon. As always, we are offering many great options for students. Recently I have been meeting with various parent, advisor, and student constituencies, delivering information about the process. Parent leads and deans have further information, so I will simply highlight the following:
- We want students to be excited about their course selections and to look for new ways to challenge themselves every year. The bottom line is we want the appropriate level of rigor for every student, and of course that rigor quotient is different for every student. We don’t want to overload them or under-challenge them either. Typically our motivated students look to do too much rather than too little. At sign-up time, ambition can get the better part of a student who may think seven courses in the fall is a great idea. But I encourage them to think realistically about what they can manage, especially during one of those extra busy weeks in the fall. It’s always better to think ahead to the worst-case scenario when considering total load. Advisors have all been trained to look out for kids in this case, and school counselor Liza Skipwith, the class deans, and I also review schedule sign-ups. The college counselors review schedules for rising Seniors as well.
- Please follow the departmental recommendations of the World Language and Mathematics teachers. Sometimes students and parents want to move too quickly through these subject areas, and the result is a student who is stretched beyond what is reasonable (see point 1 above). We give a lot of thought to the recommendations, based on the student’s track record AND past experience with other students.
- There are exciting new electives in the Social Studies Department for rising Juniors and Seniors. We ask that all students put their top three choices for history, English and arts electives every trimester. Because of scheduling constraints, students need to be comfortable with getting their second or third choice, although we certainly try our very best to get them into their first choice options. We also ask students to think more about the subject matter of these electives, as opposed to choosing based on who will be teaching the course. While some teachers are very much associated with particular courses, other electives have traditionally had multiple different teachers involved, so there is no guarantee that taking “Mr. X’s class” will be the same next year as it has been in the past.
- We have again expanded our Computer Science/Design & Engineering (Innovations) offerings, so I would encourage everyone to look carefully through those options, keeping in mind that all students have a graduation requirement of at least two trimesters of courses in these interconnected departments. Please note we are offering a yearlong course that combines the best of both worlds: called Performance Innovations, it will be team-taught by Steve Scherer and Sean Gallop.
- We have new during-the-day athletics electives, which will highlight our brand-new facilities. Students may take conditioning in the fall and winter and rock climbing (with Dr. Davis) in the spring. Both will be scheduled during an academic block instead of after school.
Students should take the course sign-up process seriously and do the best they can to reflect their intentions for the next year. That said, we know changes may need to occur. We can certainly make adjustments later in the spring, or even further down the line if necessary. Upcoming advisor conferences (on Friday, March 8) are a great time to review what your student has signed up for and discuss with the advisor the appropriateness of certain selections. We will also review selections again later in April, by which time all math and science recommendations will be in.
Please feel free to contact me, your child's advisor, or the grade-level deans in the meantime, or contact your child’s current teachers for other questions about curriculum or future courses.
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