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The Student News Site of Thomas S. Wootton High School

Common Sense

The Student News Site of Thomas S. Wootton High School

Common Sense

The Student News Site of Thomas S. Wootton High School

Common Sense

Under-enrolled electives get the ax

Under-enrolled+electives+get+the+ax

Students huddle in groups over next year’s scheduling cards, discussing what classes they plan to take. They check off classes they wish to enroll in on the card, register online and hope that their preferred classes will run the following school year. These schedule requests were due in February to allow the administration and counselors sufficient time to determine what classes will be cut due to under enrollment.
The classes cut are usually electives that most students busy completing graduation requirements do not have the time to take. This year electives including mythmaking, Shakespeare, Gothic Literature, AP European History and Musical Theater were offered. Some courses that were cut in the 2016-2017 school year will run in the upcoming 2017-2018 school year. Others will not run due to under enrollment.
Chinese 1, 2 and 3 were offered this year to gauge how many students would be interested in enrolling. Most students who take Chinese here, however, start in middle school and enroll in Honors Chinese 3 freshmen year. As a result, due to low enrollment, these three courses will not run in the upcoming school year.
Two music classes, Beginning Band and Musical Theater also will not run in the upcoming school year. “I’ve taken theater class every year in high school,” junior Becca Korn said. “I think they canceled [musical theater] because they usually switch off offering musical theater with advanced acting and play directing because that way it’s two classes in one and they can get the attendance up. But they decided that because they had a new teacher teaching musical theater maybe they could offer both because it’s now two different teachers. But they couldn’t get enough people who wanted to retake it or take it for the first time.”
Spanish 6, better known as Spanish film, also did not garner enough students to run. In addition, Culture in Lit, or Gothic Lit, and Oral Interpretation/ Mythmaking will not run. General PE/ Personal Fitness and Honors Latin 4 have also been eliminated. “I am disappointed that Myth wasn’t able to run because I’d love to teach it again,” English teacher Melanie Moomau said. “Though early interest made me hopeful, enrollment numbers just weren’t there for the class to be able to run.”
Some of the aforementioned courses have been eliminated early, in the hopes that students will sign up for other courses that may be on the verge of elimination. The administration is still waiting to see if the school’s budget and resources will allow one or two courses with a slightly lower enrollment number to run.
“Most of the classes that are cut or we choose not to run, it’s generally because of low enrollment,” administrator Joe Du Boyce said. “We meet with the resource teacher, Ms. Boldon, myself, and we try to plot, OK, what can be combined with something else or what we can’t combine with very low enrollment. Then we have to make a decision to cut the class and then move the kids. And you hope that by moving the kids you can help other classes that are on the bubble of being cut. That’s why you want to make some decisions very quick so you can get those kids in other classes and hope that those classes then run.”
Students who enrolled in any one of the eliminated classes should meet with their counselors to sign up for another course if they have not already done so. If any additional courses are eliminated, students will be contacted by their counselors and placed into another class.

Rachel Wei

Features Editor

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