Low enrollment, scheduling conflicts lead to cancelations

May 6, 2010

A letter issued April 7 by guidance counselor Beverly Lubenetski announced 11 courses will be eliminated for the 2010-2011 school year.

According to Principal Joan Benz, a course is usually dropped when not enough students show interest in taking it because the school does not have a large enough faculty to have teachers teach a small class.

“If there is not [large] enough enrollment, which is anything under 20-25 students, the class is too small to run,” Benz said.

However, with the Body Toning class, low enrollment had not previously been an issue.

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In the past, two classes of 30-35 girls each were taught.

According to gym teacher Christen Pena-Ariet, the popularity of the class may not have gone down, but Body Toning may not have fit in with the students schedules since it is only offered one period. In the case that Body Toning is only offered the same period as a math class that students need to take, they will be switched out of Body Toning.

Another class that was cut was a course being offered for the first time at CHS. The Spanish department was planning on introducing Spanish 4A/5B as a higher level class than Spanish 4 Honors, and the students taking it would get credit for taking Spanish 5.

“We were a little disappointed, but there were under 30 students enrolled, and with budget cuts it is a little hard to justify a class with only about 20 students,” Spanish department head Stacye Steele-Yue said.

While the letter also listed French 2 as one of the courses cut for the upcoming school year, the course has not been offered previously because, for the last two years, French 1 was not available, meaning there were no students to move on to French 2. However, this trend may be changing.

“The numbers are growing in the middle schools for French 1, and we are offering French 1 next year, so in two years we should have French 2 available,” French teacher Jeanne Touzeau said.

Another surprise on the list is Advanced Composition, a course taught by English teacher Jeff Savett. According to Savett, there used to be two classes, each with around 31 or 32 students enrolled.

“I knew that next years budget cuts were going to make us lose a lot of classes, but I am sad because I’ve been teaching [Advanced Composition] for nine years,” Savett said.

If a student was enrolled in one of the courses that will no longer be offered next year, he or she must meet with guidance and re-register for a different course. According to the letter sent home, affected students must fill out a course change form by April 30 in the guidance office.

Courses Not Being Offered for 2010-2011 School Year: