LYNNFIELD — Sam Cooke’s memorable lyric, “don’t know much about history,” won’t apply to town schools with the School Committee’s decision to accept a new High School Program of Studies for the 2020-2021 year.
Among the program name changes were Foreign Language is now World Language; History is now History and Social Science, and Guidance is now School Counseling and Guidance.
Physics CP will now be offered to juniors as well as seniors, while the math sequence has also been rearranged with seniors now having the option of taking statistics.
The program had been presented to the board at its Jan. 7 meeting by Principal Bob Cleary, who noted a great majority of the changes were semantics in nature or simple name changes.
“Physics used to be only for seniors, but this gives kids more flexibility so that by the time of the senior year they are free to take other elective courses, such as forensics,” Cleary said. “Sometimes physics classes get overloaded with seniors. If maybe a few more take it as a junior, then they are taking something else as a senior and freeing up space.”
Cleary said the option for seniors to take statistics gives students another option besides pre-calculus. He said students on the honors track, typically
take AL Calculus or AP statistics, but students who struggle with math had no real options for a more fundamental fourth-year math class.
“A kid that kind of struggles with their math as a junior, getting into pre-calc as a senior can be a real struggle, and, again, the student that says ‘I’m not going to be an engineering major,’ so I don’t need that technicality of calculus or pre-calculus,” said Cleary. “CP statistics will give those students something fundamental that is more useful if you are going into business or something less technical. We think it might be a better fit going into college and also adds a little bit more flexibility.”
An Honors level Chamber Singers class has also been added.
Cleary said this is in response to the fact that there is increased demand on what Chamber Singers are doing performance-wise as well on the level of expectations with respect to quality.
“We’ve gone back and forth on it, but we thought why not allow them to get honors credit because they are doing so much more,” said Cleary.
Cleary said the biggest change was to “flip-flop” Algebra 2, currently taken by 10th graders, and Geometry, currently taken by ninth-graders.
“We go through this every year and to be honest with you, it’s kind of one of those things I don’t know why we didn’t do this earlier,” said Cleary.
Cleary said the decision will make for a smoother transition for eighth-graders, who currently take Algebra 1.
“They then go into geometry in the ninth grade, which is conceptually very different,” said Cleary. “We thought the better transition would be to go from Algebra 1 in the eighth grade straight to Algebra 2 in the ninth so it’s something a little more consistent.”
Other changes included using more consistent language in the English course descriptors and updating the AP Art descriptors.
Cleary acknowledged that despite the addition of a full-time computer science teacher, student demand to take computer science still is not being met. He added that 95 students wanted to take computer science last year, but the school only had 18 spots.
“We are in a holding pattern right now as they are doing research to see what other offerings we may offer,” said Cleary.
Anne Marie Tobin can be reached at [email protected].
