School to Change Course Offerings for Coming Year

For the ’09-’10 school year, five classes will be dropped from the course selection catalog, while nine new classes will be added.
Spanish Literature AP, Spanish for Spanish Speakers, ELD Tutorial, Facing History and Civics/Economics SDAIE will be dropped. New classes next year will include Landscape Architecture, Graphic Design, Broadcasting, Sports Medicine, Construction and Mandarin III.
Landscape Architecture, Graphic Design, Broadcasting, Sports Medicine and Mandarin III are all Foothill College classes that will be offered at the LAHS campus.
According to Assistant Principal Morenike O’Neal, Foothill College will provide teachers, curriculum and materials, while LAHS will furnish classrooms, students and in some cases books for these classes.
Other new classes like Construction are available through the district’s shared campus plan. Construction, an ROP class, is offered at Alta Vista High School for any student in the district.
Students who had signed up for the dropped courses have to change their schedule and possibly try and sign up for the class elsewhere.
However, some new classes may be dropped if students do not enroll.
The most popular of the new classes, Sports Medicine, has 17 students currently enrolled.
If a class does not reach 25 students, it will not be offered for the coming school year.
“We’re still trying to build our numbers,” O’Neal said. “But we’ll try to keep [the new classes available] as long as we can.”
To boost enrollment for new courses, the administration plans to advertise and hold an informational meeting.
According to World Language Department Coordinator Terri Salsman de Rodriguex, Spanish Literature AP and Spanish for Spanish Speakers will be dropped due to low enrollment. Sixteen students enrolled in Spanish for Spanish Speakers, and eleven signed up for Spanish Literature AP.
“It’s the budget cuts [that make us cut classes],” Rodriguex said. “But it’s also the students, because in the end it’s them who decide what classes are being offered.”