How Are New Courses Implemented?

Many courses to schools have been added that tap into the creative and individual side of students like journalism 2, science fiction studies, advanced writing and film studies. All of these classes that many students take were simply ideas that people came up with and proposed. These are the steps and requirements needed in order to propose your own class!

When adding a new class to the school curriculum, there are two different types of ways that they can be implemented, as an elective or as a core class. 

With implementing an elective course into the curriculum, one of the first things is to create a yearly or semester-long schedule and to list all of the items needed for said class. The elective will fall under the jurisdiction of a department of the school depending on what the pitched class idea is. 

“Each department is responsible for their classes and what classes they offer, each has a head that has the final say but all members of the department will discuss it,” said school counselor Emily Thompson.

After passing by the department, the proposed class is forwarded to the administration of the school. Assistant Principal Amanda  Zeller is the current head of the curriculum administration during the writing of this article. “You usually think of Zeller as the discipline of the school, but the curriculum is her ballpark,” Thompson said. 

Discussions rely on whether the school needs the class, the popularity and size of the class, availability of classes, and teachers who have expertise in the subject to teach or budgeting for new teachers if needed. 

With a core class being added to the curriculum, it’s the same steps as an elective class, but also needs to be approved by other organizations than just the school, some organizations are the NCAA and the Department of Education as adding a core class has a more rigorous curriculum and would need more class space and teachers as many students would take it compared to an elective.

In recent years, there have been many people who have studied computer science and pursued more technical degrees, so the search for a technology major teacher would be a more varied search. Many instructors can teach things like life skills and technology use within the workforce. 

As schools have slowly opened up from the COVID-19 pandemic and begun rebuilding, now is a great time to discuss and attempt to improve from the current curriculum and really focus on what’s important and how to succeed in society today.