By Rell Conley
Now that we’ve entered the second semester of the school year everyone is excited for the final stretch, but there are so many new and exciting classes that are being offered next school year at Benicia High School. These new courses offer something for everyone, including new languages, new PE classes and other full year or semester long electives. Most of these are classes that have never been offered before.
You can sign up for your electives all the way until the January 29th deadline.
Here is a list of the new electives being offered:
- AP Precalculus will replace the current Precalculus course – This will have the same content/level of Precalculus, but now it will give a weighted grade and provide an optional AP exam in the Spring.
- Net Sports – This is a new Physical Education elective option for 2nd year of P.E. or for an elective. It takes place during Early Bird.
- Marching Band P.E. – This is an update to the current course, which allows credit for 2nd year of P.E.
- Mandarin/Chinese 1 – A new year-long course
- Women’s History – A new semester-long elective option.
- Intro to Audio Engineering – A new semester-long elective option.
- Intro to Art – An updated semester-long elective option.
- Creative Writing – We’re bringing back Creative Writing in form of a semester-long course/1
- Personal Finance – A new semester-long elective option (no math credit).
- Ethnic Studies – A new semester-long elective option (pending approval at January’s school meeting).
- All Drama courses are approved as CTE courses, making them a new CTE Pathway.
- CTE Technical Theater & Design – An update to the former Stagecraft course.
- Advanced P.E. for Athletic Performance – A new Physical Education elective option for 2nd year of P.E. or for an elective (pending approval at January’s meeting).
- Integrated Math 2A and Integrated Math 2B – These are new Math course offerings (pending approval at January’s meeting).
- Career & College Planning – This is a course proposal for January’s meeting. It is similar to Get Focused, Stay Focused, but for upperclassmen to help with planning for the future, applications, resumes, etc.
Some of the new, and most exciting classes on this list includes the Mandarin/Chinese language course, which counts towards your language credits that are required in order to graduate.
Another option on this list that has never been offered before is Women’s History, which is a semester long and could count towards a history and elective credit. This is a great chance to focus on the women in history more so than in your average history class.
The last class that Benicia high students seem to be the most excited about is the Ethnic Studies course if you are interested in learning about cultures and ethnicities.
These are all great options, especially if you are looking for new electives to try out. There are even options for classes that are only one semester long, which is great to get credits and not commit to a full year of just one class. If you’re interested in any of these courses, be sure to select your classes for the next school year before January 29th! You can also view the newsletter concerning electives on the Benicia Unified website.
beniciapaw.com 