LYNNFIELD — High School Principal Robert Cleary and the School Committee discussed the 2023 school-year program of studies, including finding a balance between a variety of options and sufficient student interests, as well as ensuring that the courses offered teach students the qualities outlined in the Vision of the Graduate, during the last meeting.
To make the language of the curriculum consistent with the Vision of the Graduate, the school has decided to spell out, in the new program of studies, that all English classes such as Advanced Placement (AP) English, AP Language and Composition, American Literature or AP Literature will require an English-research project.
Previously such research usually resulted in writing a paper. Now, Cleary said, the project can be done in the form of a presentation, a demonstration or a video which would be consistent with the Vision of the Graduate concept — the new approach the school is adopting to assess preparedness of graduating students to succeed in life after public school.
“There may be any number of ways that the student can take that research and share that research,” Cleary said.
Next, Cleary explained changes in senior electives. Various electives are added or taken out of the curriculum every year, he said. Lynnfield High School currently offers more than 20 electives in English for the senior year.
“It is great to give options, but sometimes there are so many options it makes the reality of what is going to run and what is not a little more difficult,” said Cleary.
Cleary believes that courses should be added to the curriculum for three to four years to see which ones catch the most interest from students. At this point, he said, the school could take out six or seven courses.
Among the courses that have been really popular with the students are Social Issues and Race and Identity, Cleary said.
The School Committee expressed a worry that once the courses are taken out of the curriculum it is hard to bring them back, as both actions must be approved by the board. Moreover, the committee wants to ensure that students have access to a very diverse collection of texts to study.
Cleary said that he is not worried about bringing classes back. Sometimes they can be brought back with a new title. Texts are also not just used in one class, but oftentimes new classes or other courses that have overlapping curriculums and read some of the same texts.
“We still want choice,” Cleary said. “We are constantly looking to see what our focus areas are, how can we affect that within already existing titles, existing classes; or is it a brand new class that we look to come up with and see what we can do?”
The course codes never get deleted, Cleary said. Each new course gets a new unique code to avoid confusion.
The minimum number of students required for a class to run depends on choices and staff availability.
“We are certainly not looking to deny kids opportunity. But it is a matter of being realistic about what our options are, and not overwhelming them with so many options that you water down the whole thing,” said Cleary.
The school is constantly updating and revising the content of courses as well, to both teach the classics, as well as get some more current texts in.
Among other changes in the program of studies, Cleary mentioned changing the language in History and Social Sciences from “constitution project” to “civics-action project”, along with removing the Spanish 5 Honors class and the Music Exploratory class because there isn’t a need for them as there used to be.
Musicians with advanced skills will be offered the Pioneer Band Honors option, which although it is not a completely separate course, will require additional activities to earn the credit for the honors. These activities include performing at the Memorial Day Parade or other out-of-class performances. Cleary said that the music teachers are good at differentiating and giving those advanced students some additional, more intense and high-level work.
To unify arts classes, the school will be offering a Pre-AP Art class to sophomores and juniors to lay the foundation for their portfolio. This class will be more artistic and more serious than a basic art class, Cleary said.
The new program of studies will offer an option for juniors showing outstanding ability in math and business classes to jump from College Preparatory (CP) classes to a more advanced course like Pre-Calculus Honors. It will also incorporate a cyber-security course, as the students showed a lot of interest in it after having some speakers come to the school.
To make the new program consistent with the Vision of the Graduate, the school has been looking at what it already offers and what kind of qualities are coming out of the existing classes, and what can be tweaked to match the new skills-assessment approach.