After holding an in-depth discussion on the Intervention and Enrichment Proposal during last month’s Ontario Board meeting, school administrators addressed this subject again at Wednesday’s meeting.
High School Principal Chris Smith opened the discussion, stating, “After the approval of the proposal, we continued to do our research on dual credit classes, AP classes, and honors classes, which are the three main of items of that proposal at the high school, and we’ve come up with what we think is a pretty good plan.”
For the 2014-2015 school year, the high school will be offering four additional dual credit courses: Chemistry 1030, Chemistry 1031, Physics 1110, and Calculus I and Calculus II (both Calculus courses will be one semester long).
The high school already offers Psychology, Sociology, and Anatomy and Physiology dual credit courses to juniors and seniors. Those classes will also be offered next school year.
In addition, Advanced Placement (AP) courses will remain.
Superintendent Lisa Carmichael stated, “Mr. Beck, you asked why we can’t offer classes as both AP and dual credit at the last board meeting, and at the time, we didn’t think it was possible, but we came to find out it is possible.”
Smith clarified that Chemistry and Calculus will be offered as both AP and dual credit. Students will have to indicate before enrolling in the class if they would like to take it for AP or dual credit.
“When the proposal was brought up last month, we mentioned that we’re not going to change for the sake of changing,” stated Smith. “We plan to keep the same rigor and content that we’ve always had here at Ontario.”
He further stated, “With all the standards that are required to be taught in eleventh and twelfth grade English, those courses didn’t line up to any specific college dual credit course…so we aren’t going to offer a dual credit English class next year because we felt it wasn’t doing our kids justice.” However, AP English 11 and 12 will be offered to the students.
In total, AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, AP English 11, and AP English 12 will again be offered next school year.
Additionally, students may enroll in four honors courses: Honors Geometry 9, Honors Biology 9, Honors Algebra II, and Honors English 10.
Finally, students can elect to take any of the five new electives to be offered next school year: Introduction to Law, The Presidency, Robotics, Illustration and Laser Design, and Journalism.
In other news, board member Sam VanCura pulled one item from the consent agenda items list to allow for further discussion. The item dealt with approving the new/revised/deleted board policies.
“The state legislature and federal legislature make it impossible for a school district to run its own business, particularly with the bullying policy,” VanCura stated, “And I’m not objecting to a bullying policy, but the way policy is written actually opens us up to more lawsuits because there is no discretion given to people that we hire.”
“I do not wish for the other board members to vote no on this because I know that the school district needs policies, but I’m going to vote no, and it is only a single person objection…The reason that I mentioned this policy is that if you will read the policy, you will see that there is so much detail and it gives no opportunity for any intelligent employee in our school district to do anything that has a potential mistake, which can open a lawsuit.”
The board meeting also allowed space for a presentation by four students from Melissa Vannest’s Family and Consumer Science class: Sophie Zara, Chelsea Kent, Hannah Herrold, and Chase Egner. Together, they presented a slideshow on their Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) trip to Tennessee, where they participated in the National Leadership Camp in July.
“When the proposal was brought up last month, we mentioned that we’re not going to change for the sake of changing,” stated Smith. “We plan to keep the same rigor and content that we’ve always had here at Ontario.”
