Cda Board Didn’T Approve ‘Fluff’ Electives History Of Sports, Entertainment Among New Lake City Courses

Hundreds of students have registered for the 26 new electives being offered at Lake City High School next fall, and dozens of teachers are gearing up to teach them.

There’s just one problem: None of the classes has been approved by the school district.

The unprecedented number of new courses is necessary because the school will begin block scheduling in the fall. The program, which is not used currently at Coeur d’Alene High School, lengthens class periods and requires students to take eight classes each semester instead of six.

“A lot of public comment in favor of block scheduling referred to increased electives as well as increased rigor,” board chairwoman Wanda Quinn said at Monday’s school board meeting. “Your elective selection could definitely color people’s perceptions of block scheduling.”

The board approved the two-year block-scheduling pilot program in March, one month after Lake City administrators usually begin registering students for the next year’s classes. They did not have time to get the board’s approval of the courses before they had to start the month-long process of signing up students for them.

“Once that was done, we were already behind where normal registration would have been,” Lake City Principal John Brumley said. “It’s a huge chore in an ordinary year.”

Of the 26 proposed courses, board members asked Brumley and others at Lake City on Monday to rewrite two - The History of Sports and Entertainment and Community Design. The board is expected to vote on the courses at its meeting on June 22.

If it rejects the courses, students will have to be pulled from those classes and put into other ones.

“I would be disappointed if the classes some kids signed up for wouldn’t be there in the fall,” said Lake City junior Katie Comar, who is registered for the Advanced Art Studio elective. “This might be a chance for them to take classes they wouldn’t have had the chance to take before.”

The outline for the history class proposes to “bridge the gap between historical events and student cultural interests” in part by requiring students to attend sports and entertainment events.

“I won’t vote for it,” board member Herb Cheeley said.

The other course would examine the role of art in the community, with students participating in poster contests and logo competitions for local businesses.

Several members of the ad hoc committee reviewing the course referred to it as “fluff” and “filler,” according to the committee’s report.

Board member John Goedde hopes that the students’ work would not compete with that of professional artists in the community.

“There are people who paint windows at Christmas and do murals for a living,” Goedde said.

Enrollment in the courses far exceeds the expectations of Lake City administrators, who hoped for one section of each class to fill. A World Wide Web course and a photography course both packed six sections of about 25 students each.

With several courses focusing on entertainment, Quinn and others questioned whether they would be academically challenging.

But Comar’s mother, Candy, who served on the committees that helped design the courses, said the classes would be as good as the teachers make them.

“None of these are slouch classes,” Comar said. “All of these courses are going to be the best of the best because Lake City is going to be under the microscope.”

THE COURSES Here are the 26 new elective courses proposed this fall at Lake City High School: The Greek Mind; Poetry in Sound and Word; Classic Movies as Literature; Great Books; Sophomore World Studies; Styles of Acting; Latin I; Photography and Design Studio; Advanced Art Studio; Art: Community Design; Media Production; Humanities and Television; Communications Technology II (Architecture); Manufacturing Systems II; Advanced Placement Biology; Anatomy and Physiology; Geology; Visual Basic (computer language); Webmastering; Psychology II; Honors American Government; Personal Finance Planning; History of Sports and Entertainment; Aerobic Fitness and Nutrition; Concepts of Athletic Training; Health Fitness