Five electives won’t run in ‘23-’24, while six added due to changing enrollment patterns

These are graphical images representing the five removed classes and six added classes.

Classes with less than twenty signups were removed.

Five elective courses in this year’s schedule won’t run next year while six others have been added to the course list for the 2023-24 school year.

Courses generally didn’t run if they received fewer than 20 sign-ups, school officials said.

The classes that won’t run are Introduction to Digital Animation, Creative Writing, Creative Writing 2 Honors, Japanese 3 Honors and Marine Biology.

The added classes are AP Music Theory, AP 2D Art Design, AP 3D Art Design, regular Statistics, AP Japanese Language and Culture and Stage Technology and Design 2.

Both Creative Writing classes were removed because of a lack of signups. This might be because students knew that English 11 Honors and Creative Writing teacher Amy Keys is going on a sabbatical next school year. Students who took the class this year have expressed disappointment with its discontinuation.

“I think it is unfortunate that Creative Writing will not be offered,” said senior Adam Xu, who took the class in his senior year. “It is a super rewarding and fun class, as it enables you to explore a diverse set of genres and styles. It is a great way to prepare your work for contests and publications.”

Japanese 3 Honors, which was also removed from next year’s course list, has been replaced by the addition of AP Japanese Language and Culture, which allows students to prepare for college Japanese courses.

Since the school currently does not offer Japanese 1 and 2, the removal of Japanese 3 Honors means that no introductory Japanese classes will be offered next year. This is the case because Japanese courses at school do not attract many signups. As a result, each year the school has only had one period of one Japanese course that goes up in level each year, as those who are interested in Japanese each year typically apply for the next level in the course sequence.

This makes it more difficult for Japanese students to obtain foreign language credit and pursue a foreign language, given the now limited options to choose from.

Similarly, not offering Introduction to Digital Animation makes it more difficult for students to obtain visual art credits and learn about or pursue animation in the future.

Senior Kunal Singh, who is a teaching assistant for this year’s only period of Digital Animation taught by Alex Hemmerich, feels that there is no real substitute to the class.

“The removal of the class is tragic since it is a gateway into a fairly unknown industry, so a lot of future talent may be squandered,” Singh said. “As a result, there is a loss of potential in the field for students, and many now will not be able to find out if it might be a path they want to pursue.”

While regular Statistics and AP Music Theory have been offered in past years, they didn’t run this year. Bringing back Statistics offers students an alternative to the Statistics in Sports and AP Statistics courses, and helps students approach the topic through a more gradual curriculum.

AP Music Theory, which has tended to run every other year, provides more options for students interested in music, as this class is one of the prerequisites to other music classes such as Honors Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Band I.

Similarly, the addition of AP 2D Art Design and AP 3D Art Design allows students to build their art portfolio.

“I am really excited to take AP 2D Art Design next year because it gives me another opportunity to take an art elective. I had a lot of fun in AP Drawing this year,” junior Carine Chan said.