River Dell High School has been without a culinary class since the school was founded.
During the upcoming summer months, River Dell High School plans on renovating the school according to the referendum. This referendum addresses many student and parent concerns, including the lack of a culinary class. Thankfully, River Dell is planning to add a student kitchen to the high school, and a culinary class is set to be available to students next school year.
“Cooking is an essential part of life,” said Mr. Small, a TV teacher at RD. “It’s a life skill that everyone’s going to need to know, especially once you move out of the house. You’re going to have to learn how to cook yourself,” emphasized Mr. Small.
River Dell is adding this long-awaited kitchen and culinary class due to the high demand among students. Mr. Pepe, the principal of River Dell High School, detailed, “We did a survey two years ago through the Guidance Office on elective choices for students and what they would want to have at the high school, and the top choice by far was life skills/home economics and culinary.”
Dr. Albro, the superintendent of the River Dell Regional School District, explains further, “We had the opportunity to bring the class in. When we saw that a culinary class was a student need and desire we said, ‘It just makes a lot of sense for us to do that’”.
Regarding the actual kitchen, it is going to be added in a hallway that is currently occupied by a TV media room and a science room, which are rooms 216 and 218. This will decrease the overall size of the two to make three equal-sized classrooms.
The school expects that many students will request to take the culinary class. However, there are questions about who will get priority for the class, since there are so many students who want to enroll.
Dr. Albro stated, “We’re in the process of writing the curriculum for it right now and deciding who gets top priority for enrollment in that class. Obviously, juniors and seniors who don’t have much time to take the class because they’re not just starting high school would more than likely get the priority. But I’m not really sure how that’s going to go yet.”
Dr. Albro continued, “It’s not like the traditional home economics course. It’s more the culinary piece, like you see on Chopt or cooking shows on TV. It will be focusing on the art, design, and chemistry of cooking. It’s everything about nutrition and how it all fits into the entire design of the curriculum.”
The culinary class won’t just be cooking for the students, however. Mr. Pepe explained that the community would benefit from this class too, listing the things he would like to see the culinary class do.
“One thing that I would like to do is provide meals to homeless shelters and different places like that during holidays, and we could also cater events that are taking place here. If there’s a board meeting or other big meetings, instead of calling maybe a local business to cater it, we call in the seniors in the culinary class to cater the dinner.”
Just how the culinary students would be helping the community, the community would help the students. “Community members who are in the culinary business can guest in the class. There are so many different things that go into the business, like budgeting, and menus, and the actual cooking itself, that I think bringing in people who specialize in that area can really help the students to have a better understanding,” said Mr. Pepe.
Allie Zagroba, a sophomore at River Dell, explained that she thinks it will teach students something that they will need in the real world. She also stated, “I’m excited to learn how to cook things for myself and to expand my knowledge. I think it will really help me to try things I wouldn’t have usually tried if it weren’t for school.”
