New courses proposed for next school year

The administration approved six possible additions to the growing course lineup for the 2016-17 school year in a series of meetings late last year and in early January. 

These new classes are Engineering Design and Development, Sports Statistics,  Toga Dance Fitness, Animated Graphics and AP Studio Art.

Engineering Design and Development is the last of the line of four engineering classes, which have received new additions each year. The engineering program also consists of Introduction to Engineering, Principles of Engineering and Digital Electronics.

Sports Statistics will serve as a non-AP alternative to a statistics class.

Toga dance fitness will feature many types of dance for exercise, including Zumba, and will likely be taught by history teacher Kim Anzalone, a certified Zumba teacher outside of school. This class can be taken by students looking to fulfill their PE credit.

“I hope that it will become a popular PE elective —  not to take away from any regular PE classes but to enrich the PE program at Toga,” Anzalone said.

Another class being offered for the first time next year is AP Studio Art. For this class, students will be allowed to further their interests in a more advanced class.

In addition to these new classes, the school is also trying to reinstate a few courses that were proposed before but did not receive enough signups to run. One of these classes is Weight Training for athletes. Assistant principal Brian Safine said classes like these are proposed by departments that feel like there needs to be more options to fulfill credits other than  traditional classes.

Animated Graphics will also be offered next year, and will be open to all students.

The administration is still working on finding teachers who could teach these new classes.

“The plan would be to have existing teachers to teach the classes, but we don't know who will teach what at this point,” Safine said.

The classes are also not guaranteed to run at this point, as  there need to be enough signups during the student's’ course selection process to reach the level the school deems acceptable. Nevertheless, Safine is enthusiastic about this list.

“I think our teachers continue to get pretty excited about finding options that students would enjoy such as Weight Training, Sign Language, Dance Fitness and a fourth year engineering course,” Safine said. “It really shows the range of classes that students can sign up for because they all have different interests.”