Disclaimer: This story does not include an administrative perspective on the situation surrounding class cancellations. An interview request was sent out to multiple district members; however, due to time constraints, no interview could be scheduled.
There is a near-limitless number of pathways that students can take to graduation. With dozens of different classes offering similar credits, students have plenty of options to choose from when picking courses for the next school year. But, with dropping budgets and student enrollment, some classes that have been offered in previous years will not be offered next year.
“Our numbers are down overall, our student numbers for next year,” CKHS teacher Blair Taylor said. “As a result, there apparently isn’t enough demand to run certain classes, or there’s demand that we need teachers to teach other things.”
Two of the classes cut were the two most advanced math classes, AP Calculus BC and AP Statistics, the former taught by Jessie French. These two, along with AP Calculus AB, have been the only AP math courses offered at CKHS, and with the loss of two of those classes, students who complete precalculus only have one option.
“I thought it would be one or the other,” French said. “I did not think it was both. The reaction to that right now, first, I think it was just a little bit of disbelief in the math department. I can’t believe that when, once upon a time, this building had five sections of calculus running and five sections of AP Statistics running, now we will have zero. We’ll have one AB running. It’s a little embarrassing, right? We’re not offering our top kids a math class their sometimes junior [year] and definitely not their senior year of high school.”
Many students can complete precalculus in their sophomore year, and sometimes even earlier. With class cancellations, if a student takes precalculus in their sophomore year, then their only option is Calculus AB junior year, leaving no high-level math classes for senior year.
“They’re out of options,” French said. “Before, they would get done with BC and then take [AP Statistics], and then their senior year we didn’t necessarily have something for them, but that’s like one or two kids, never 20-something that we’re not serving.”
Faced with the lack of options, some students, such as Lucas Burbank, are opting to take classes at Olympic College instead through the Running Start program.
“I’m going to Running Start next year because, and I was informed of this last week, that the school is not offering any classes for AP [Statistics] or AP [Calculus] BC, which are the only two advanced math classes I haven’t taken yet,” Burbank said.
But, as more students are moving to Running Start, the low enrollment problem is exasperated.
“One of the things I find ironic is that the reason that they are not offering these classes is because they don’t have enough students that are taking them in order to run classes,” Burbank said. “But that’s only because those students are in Running Start, and then not offering these classes just further puts more students into Running Start, and so it just kind of perpetuates itself.”
Another pair of classes cut next year is AP Seminar and AP Research. The classes are taught in a pair, where students take AP Seminar first and then AP Research, and aim to teach kids about the steps to create a proper research project.
“I like [AP] Seminar because it really has given me a chance to grow in a lot of different areas that I feel a normal English class wouldn’t have allowed me to,” AP Seminar student Lily Selby said. “While a normal English class would have helped me get better at writing essays and papers, this class has really helped me develop a sense of argumentation, and also I am now more comfortable with public speaking, which I feel is an important skill.”
Like most AP classes, the course is relatively difficult and includes some heavy coursework. One student, Aedyn Zimmerman, transferred into the class late and had to make up some of the work, but with the class cancellations, despite his efforts, he will not receive the AP Capstone diploma that requires both classes.
“I did two presentations at the same time, and we paid $147 for the test, and I’m not going to get the college credit if I can’t do AP Research,” Zimmerman said. “It’s a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of dedication that went into this, and it’s going to be wasted.”
The AP Capstone tests also cost more
than the average AP test, leaving students and their families even more irritated.
“I understand that while we can’t long-term continue this course with how people are signing up for it, just cutting us off in the middle of it isn’t really right,” Selby said.
Many current sophomores who signed up for cut AP classes are worried about filling their schedules with academically rigorous classes. Bo Wooll is one of these students, as two classes he signed up for were cancelled.
“AP Seminar and AP [Statistics],” Wooll said. “Both classes are being cut; both were on my requested class list. Assuming that they don’t add them back before I actually get to 11th grade, I will be taking AP [Literature] and AP Calc AB, which also leads me down another path because [AP] Calc BC is getting cut.”
There are a couple primary reasons that classes end up cancelled, the main one being low enrollment into CKHS. With fewer and fewer students entering high school, fewer classes can be offered.
“The graduating senior class this year is 400 students-ish, and the incoming freshman class is 300 students,” French said. “So we are losing about 100 students overall. … We are now feeling that impact at the high school, and then that is compounded with students who are choosing to go to Running Start for a variety of reasons; they’re not signing up to take [AP Calculus] BC or AP [Statistics].”
The Running Start program offers students the opportunity to earn both high school and college credits by taking classes at the local community college, Olympic College. Students who take part in the program can graduate high school with an associate’s degree, all for free. This opportunity is too good to pass up for some students and has led to a decline in students signing up for rigorous courses at the high school.
“We also have a lot of dual credit classes,” French said. “So we have students who are like, ‘Okay, well, I took Geometry, Algebra 2, and then I took pre-calc College in the High School.’ And instead of getting point-five per semester, they’re getting one credit per semester. They have a lot of math credits now, so then they’re not inclined to take more, because they’ve already checked that box.”
With the lesser enrollment, there are also budgetary issues, as the amount of funding the school gets is partially tied to the amount of students they serve.
“The obvious answer is more funding, but that doesn’t seem likely for a large amount of reasons,” Wooll said. “I think another solution could be focusing on trimming down programs that are not specialty education.”
But many students feel that this is not enough of a reason to completely cancel the classes.
“I, and many other students at the school, feel that budgetary requirements are not a valid reason for cutting academic excellence,” Wooll said. “It’s not a valid excuse to get rid of valuable classes that enrich our learning.”
A worry of some teachers is how difficult it is to get a class back once it is cancelled.
“My major worry is that once we get rid of a class, it’s really hard to resurrect it,” French said. “Next year is a new curriculum adoption for both calculus, statistics, and our Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, and [precalculus] math classes. If we aren’t running it, why would we adopt a curriculum? And if we don’t adopt a curriculum, we can never run it again.”
Students and teachers alike have been trying to figure out a solution to this pressing issue.
“One possible solution is we know that [there is] higher student performance and student and teacher satisfaction [with] smaller class sizes, and that would actually be beneficial,” Taylor said. “But that’s one of those cases where budget issues and what’s best for students and staff, is coming to conflict.”
But, for now, the class cancellation list stays the same. Many students are working together to express their frustrations with the cut courses, with several students attending or planning to attend school board meetings to air their concerns.
“I would just encourage students to make their voice heard about this,” Taylor said. “If they know that classes they want to take are not being offered, they should ask why and ask for specific numbers, because some of them look like there’s actually quite a few people that want to take them, and they’re still not being offered.”
