Michael Beeli
Staff Writer
The Advanced Placement Government and Economics classes at Mira Costa High School will no longer be offered individually next year, instead students wishing to take AP Government will be required to enroll in AP Economics as well, and vice versa. Although the changes restrict students’ options when scheduling next year, they will prove to simplify the process for students, teachers, and administrators.
AP Government and AP Economics are both semester-length courses offered as the advanced alternative to senior-level social studies classes. The two classes previously had been separated, meaning that students could take one of the courses at AP level and the other at the CP level, which includes taking the class over the summer.
According to AP Economics Teacher Adam Geczi, the primary reason the two classes have been grouped together into a joint year-long course was because students hoping to take only one class or the other had to work through their schedules individually with administration staff in order to enroll in only one of the semester long courses. Grouping them together eliminates the possibility of these scheduling complications, which are too much added stress to an already complex scheduling process.
Social Studies Department Chair Bill Fauver also indicated that at Redondo Union High School, the difficulties caused by the alternative enrollment prompted the administration to cease offering the AP classes altogether, a scenario that could plausibly affect Costa as well. The benefit of being able to enroll in one of the classes without the other does not outweigh the possibility of both classes being pulled from the schedule, thus marrying the two classes is the prudent option.
According to Geczi, a further complication that accompanied the semester-length duration of the classes is rotation respective to preparing for the AP tests for both in May. Since AP tests are approximately a month before school ends, AP Government and Economics students have to switch to the alternate course before the semester ends, in order to allocate adequate time to each in order to prepare for the AP tests. Students that are enrolled in only one of the courses would have to wait until the end of the semester to transfer to their second semester-long course or simply lose a period before the semester even ended, an additional scheduling issue that is better avoided.
According to next year’s AP Government Teacher Lisa Claypoole, another advantage of grouping the two classes together is that by establishing the two as one year-long course, they could only be counted as one AP class in the case of an established AP cap by the district. If the two were to count individually as two separate AP classes in the event of an AP cap, students’ options would be severely limited and enrollment in the course would decline severely, therefore it is also safer to categorize the two into one year-long course.
According to Junior Walker Heintz, many students that are passionate about Economics as well as Government hoped to enroll in AP Economics over the year but take CP Government over the summer in order to avoid the excessive workload of a former Government teacher. But now that Claypoole is teaching the AP Government course, Heintz said, many more students are happy to enroll in both AP Government and Economics together. With one of the leading causes for students to avoid enrolling in AP Government no longer present, students will be more receptive to AP Government, and the class will attract students who are interested in government without scaring them away.
Although students no longer have the option to only take one of the courses, the now-joint class is now more orderly and structured. Students who are truly interested in social studies are no longer discouraged from taking the class due to certain teachers or district policies and the administration no longer has to deal with an array of chaotic schedule changes.
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