Friday, April 9, 2010
By Allie Rosen
Staff Writer
The Mira Costa administration revoked a new policy that prevented students from taking two classes within the same department, effective today, because the Manhattan Beach Unified School District school board decided to provide funding for two new class sections for the upcoming year.
“Some reduction will be made to class sections, but not as much as we thought, with the $4.1 million MBEF donation,” Superintendent Dr. Beverly Rohrer said.
The new policy, which would have gone into effect for the 2010-11 school year, was created because of overcrowded classes and a lack of funding. It would have prevented students from taking two classes in departments such as math, science and foreign language.
“We didn’t tell people ahead of time because we were in the process of making a lot of new policies. It was just something we had to do because we can’t cut courses that are graduation requirements,” Principal Julie Ruisinger said.
When creating the new policy, the administration did not foresee the negative response from students and their parents. Administors had felt that the options of taking classes online or at El Camino College would be able to meet the needs of the majority of the students who were affected.
“The school board received complaints and since we want to be able to offer our students advanced options and do what is best for them, we found the funding we needed. For example, we now realize that taking science classes elsewhere can be extremely difficult because of the required lab time,” Ruisinger said.
Many teachers say they were very upset that they were not made aware of the new restriction. Although it was a budgetary necessity, some worried that such a rule would hurt many students.
“I know this change really caught the students off guard. Because the entire department was not notified, we couldn’t help our students make scheduling choices,” AP statistics teacher Dan Debevec said.
Many students, who were not notified of the rule until their scheduling appointments, were upset about the new regulation.
“It was a little bit frustrating that they couldn’t tell us before we spent so long thinking about it and discussing it with our parents,” junior Megan Difley said.
Even though students can now take two classes in the same department, Ruisinger still encourages students to expand their schedules by taking classes online or at community colleges. Many colleges and universities are beginning to accept online courses in addition to allowing courses taken at community colleges to count toward college credit.
“It is becoming harder and harder to get a spot at El Camino, but if students sign up early, it’s a great way to take additional classes,” Ruisinger said.
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