Offer a new AP course, and students will sign up.
That is the clear conclusion after more than 140 current juniors have signed up for the new AP government class to be offered in the fall, according to principal Paul Robinson. After taking into consideration the number of students who requested the class, the social studies department has decided to open five sections so that no students will be left out.
Robinson said the social studies department is figuring out teacher schedules for next year and may need to have a new teacher come in to teach the full-year course. This blending of government and economics won't only be for the AP class but also for regular Government/Economics, in which there will only be two months of economics and the rest government.
"I really love the idea of blending government and [economics] so that economic issues show the influence they have on politics and government and vice versa," Robinson said. "It makes a lot of sense to me."
According to history teacher Kirk Abe, the new AP curriculum will be completely different from the college prep curriculum and will include significantly more reading, writing and free-response and document-based questions.
The class is in the development stage, and over the summer, government and economics teachers will attend conferences about blending the two courses.
"It takes a lot of time and effort behind the scenes to make changes like this, and there will be a lot of work throughout the year next year," Robinson said. "Our teachers really want these courses to be a rich experience for all of our seniors, and not just another AP course to add to a transcript."