The San Benito High School administrative team presented its Academic Priorities Report to the San Benito High School Board of trustees at the Jan. 10 meeting. The team, made up of Principal Adrian Ramirez, Assistant Principal Claire Grissom, Assistant Principal Jeremy Dirks, Assistant Principal Elaine Klauer, Director of Educational Services Cindi Krokower and Director of Special Education Paulette Cobb, worked to identify the school’s academic priorities in an effort to gain insight on what direction to move forward with the school’s strategic plan.
One major area of concern, presented by Grissom, were the A-G requirements. The A-G requirements are a set of 15 high school courses a college-bound student must take for admission as a first-time freshmen at a CSU or University of California school. A grade of C or better is required for each course a student takes.
Grissom said 43 percent of last year’s seniors completed the A-G graduation and college entrance requirements, while 20 percent attempted but where not able to complete them and 37 percent did not attempt to complete them. She added that if those numbers remained unchanged, the current freshman class is faced with new A-G graduation requirements that could potentially “bottleneck” students if they don’t complete them as required to graduate.
“These rates could change and we need to anticipate these challenges,” she said. “We need to look at each area under A-G to determine the courses which will bottleneck our students,” Grissom said. “This includes the new P.E. requirement for sophomore year.”
She said that a sophomore following the A-G requirements takes English, math, science, social science, world language, and P.E. courses, leaving no room for electives or support courses unless the student elected to take a seven-period day.
“The six courses that they have to take would fill their schedule and would not allow them to take any support courses,” Grissom said.
Trustee Patty Nehme asked if students could postpone a class, such as world language, or if they had to take it during their sophomore year.
“Currently, at times our counselors have postponed the world languages requirement for students to junior and senior year,” Grissom answered. “However, that leaves a very narrow margin of error for any struggles the student may have because the A-G requirement is two years of the same foreign language.”
Trustee William Tiffany asked if there were solutions to the problems.
Grissom said that the bell committee had looked at changing the current rotating block schedule — in which students take three classes one day and three the next, with an optional “zero period” — and the board could re-evaluate the two-year P.E requirement, or put more focus on passing the physical fitness test.
Nehme continued the discussion by asking if the P.E requirement was state-mandated or a district requirement.
Grissom said, “the board in the past decided to make it a two-year P.E. However, each district is different.”
While the presentation was strictly informational, Interim Superintendent Shawn Tennenbaum said the administrative team would be dissecting the A-G requirements and will be bringing recommendations to the board and community at the Jan. 31 meeting with a goal of preventing any unintended consequences to students and to ensure they have the right pathways to success.