By Miya Cao and Sophia Wu, Co-Copy Editors and Staff Reporter
At the Jan. 2 regular school board meeting, members approved the 2025-26 Program of Studies. Administration and teachers revised the TV, literature and preschool learning classes, with many of the changes resulting from the new mixed-model schedule and student feedback.
In the Business and Technology department, the Beginning and Intermediate TV classes are currently semester-long classes that are prerequisites for Advanced TV Production/Broadcast Journalism, or Good Morning ’Stoga (GMS). These courses will be combined into a semester-long course called Introduction to TV Broadcast Journalism.
The new course will condense the original curriculum by removing the film project in Intermediate TV. Students interested in film can now take Advanced Screen Writing and Production without a prerequisite. Junior Kaitlyn Parson has mixed feelings about the removed exposure to filmmaking in the TV classes.
“I really liked Intermediate TV because it gave me the choice between broadcasting and film, and I like broadcasting, but a lot of kids chose the film route,” Parson said. “I think that’s kind of sad that they don’t get to experience it anymore.”
According to TV teacher Alison Ferriola, the department combined the courses due to students requesting to have fewer prerequisites for GMS. They aim to avoid confusion regarding the new schedule by making one course worth 0.5 credits, meaning it will take place every day, instead of two courses worth 0.25 credits.
In a new semester-long Sports Broadcasting class, students will learn how to commentate various sports and the fundamentals of sports broadcasting, with a final project of an original student-produced sports entertainment show. The class was added due to demand from students in the Sports and Entertainment Marketing course that was added this year.
“A lot of the students in the Sports and Entertainment Marketing class were saying ‘I would love to do just the sports part of GMS,’” Ferriola said. “It gave me an idea that if many kids are saying they want to do the sports part of GMS, and (we) don’t have a ton of space for all sportscasters in GMS, why not try to open up a course?”
Learning Through Play is a current semester-long Conestoga preschool course for juniors and seniors. Due to a teacher vacancy, it will be integrated into the Child Development Preschool Experience, which is a semester-long course available for grades 10-12.
The English department revamped the blended accelerated and honors comparative literature classes for seniors. The current Comparative Literature: Coming of Age will become Mirrors, and Science Fiction and Dystopia will become Mayhem. A new course called Masks will focus on dramas and performative literature. These changes will allow for greater flexibility in the curriculum and for students to explore broader topics, and other forms of literature such as poetry, short stories, films and art in each class.
Members of the English department collected student feedback through surveys and discussions to create the courses.
“We’re constantly adapting and changing (the 12th grade course selection),” Gately said. “There were things and skills that we really wanted students to have before they venture off into whatever they do next. In many cases, it’s college, and we felt like having a more streamlined 12th grade course would allow us to better prepare our students for life beyond Conestoga.”
Miya Cao can be reached at [email protected].
Sophia Wu can be reached at [email protected].
