Since the passing of the referendum, a lot has been said to change. One of these things, the reinstatement of old classes and possible addition of new classes. To start off, old classes never went away, they just couldn’t run because there wasn’t enough interest or staff or both. What the referendum changed, was that now the limitations of classes are not dependent on if we have enough staff but only if we have enough interest. Every class on the curriculum guide will run as long as enough students want to take the class. I spoke with Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services, Christopher Geocaris, about how classes are chosen each year. I made a timeline of the process if you really want to see but to sum it up, classes are chosen about a year before the actual school year starts. This means anything the referendum changed is still in the very early phases of development and will go into affect around the 2024-2025 school year. 

However, the referendum isn’t the only factor in new classes being implemented. New state legislation has been recently announced called *The Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness Act. This encourages schools to do more with and offer more dual credit to students. Dual credit courses are classes where students can earn highschool and college credit (transferable through CLC for Warren students) at the same time. The purpose of this act is to get students to explore careers, internships, and team based challenges. Three new dual credit classes for the 2023-2024 school year have already been added to the curriculum guide and students are able to sign up for them for next year. These classes are **Honors College General Chemistry, AP Environmental Science, and Tech Academy Certificates and Tech Academy Plus. Mr. Geocaris also mentioned that he is working with some of the head teachers in the industrial technology and fine arts departments to set up new dual credit options for students in the coming years. 

All in all, the implementation of new dual credit classes and the fact that we don’t have to worry about staffing, means students have more opportunities to learn about what they’re interested in while in high school. Before, students would have to research courses for their area of interest themselves and find options outside of class, taking up time and money. Now, students can pursue what they’re passionate about without those limitations to hold them back.

*to see more information on PWR click here

**see the curriculum guide for the type of college credit you are eligible to receive