Last year, all freshmen were required to take the class Language and Composition, an English class which taught students the basics of non-fiction writing. This year Lang and Comp was discontinued and is no longer a class in the curriculum.
The idea of removing Lang and Comp was brought up about two years ago and it was a collaborative decision that was made by the administrative team including the Department Supervisor of ELA, the Superintendent, the Guidance director and members of the Board of Education.
Dr. Torres says, “Removing that course directly impacts 9th grade students, in terms of opening up spaces in their schedule for new courses, and also changing some of the curricular elements that would be involved in the standard or what we call core English courses.”
School districts are always looking for the best possible learning opportunities for students, although there are state mandates that need to be met so when deciding to discontinue Lang and Comp the administrators had to take that into consideration.
Eliminating Lang and Comp allowed the freshmen to have greater choice in their schedule by giving freshmen an additional electives. The administrators believed that the 9th graders would benefit from these classes and programs.
It is seen that due to lang and comp no longer being in the curriculum it allows freshmen students to pick another elective in its place.
Sabrina Klein, a freshman at River Dell, said, “I am taking Journalism and Intro to Computer Programming. I like Intro to Computer Programming because I think that the world is evolving and becoming more of a digital age with more software and computers. It would be beneficial to utilize the resources that will appear more in the future by learning how to code.”
When looking at the number of freshmen taking certain electives this year compared to last year the numbers drastically changed.
The class Introduction to Ceramics number of students increased 274% gaining 47 students this year compared to last year. As well as Introduction to Photography and Digital Design increased by 262% this year gaining 34 students.
Business Management and Marketing increased by 208% gaining 39 students.
This change in the schedule has changed the number of students taking classes and in some cases resulted in the loss of freshmen.
Many believe that Lang and Comp provided freshmen with resources in writing that they can carry throughout high school. Alexa Dabies, a sophomore who took Lang and Comp last year, stated that, “I feel like lang and comp gave us a lot of good resources that we can carry into our other classes, so I think freshmen this year wont have the same resources as we were given last year.”
The discontinuation of Lang and Comp is a new change in the curriculum that opens up a spot in freshman schedules for an additional elective. Although this change is new, many students have reported to like this change although many past freshmen are jealous of this change.
