Students attending New Trier High School next year will have five new courses to consider taking, District 203 administrators told New Trier High School board members this month.
Among that number: a course aimed at juniors or seniors who want a culinary career, a special freshman-level art course for both general and special education students, and an advanced health and wellness course for seniors, according to a report from Peter Tragos.
Tragos, the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said the additions bring a “fresh perspective” to New Trier’s curriculum offerings, as will existing courses that have either been revamped in some fashion or combined with other existing offerings.
A film production course for seniors that ties in with the Winnetka campus’s new audio-visual suite area is another new offering, Tragos said, as is a social studies course open to sophomores through seniors, focusing on the theory of civics and social justice.
A sixth new course will allow students who studied Chinese in elementary school, and who also studied Chinese as freshmen last year, to complete four years of study in the language. The course will be offered to seniors beginning in the 2019-2020 academic year.
The new offerings are full-year courses, he told the board.
Tragos said Tuesday that the number of new courses that made it through committee reviews at the department and campus level differs little from the numbers introduced in previous years.
Board member Marc Glucksman asked at the board meeting if any course adjustments were driven by new teaching hires the district made for the coming year. Tragos said he didn’t think any were, although newly hired teachers might be indirectly involved if they were part of department curriculum committees.
“The driving force in all of this is the kids,” Superintendent Paul Sally said, adding that curriculum committees bring what they hear students say they need into their considerations.
Tragos told Keith Dronen, the board’s vice-president, that the Chinese course will help students who began taking Chinese in fifth grade in Wilmette School District 39, the largest of the elementary districts sending students to New Trier.
He said New Trier has three Chinese instructors, and told Dronen that finding teachers was “challenging.”
He said Tuesday that District 39 is currently the only one of six New Trier area elementary district offering Chinese.
The board took no action on the course report when they met Oct. 16. All the changes will be approved at the November meeting, Sally said.
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy
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