Students Have No Choice, They Want More Classes

Sonic Mejias

Students at AFHHS have been expressing concerns about lack of options when it comes to choosing classes. They also described how there was a lack of creative arts in the school.

When asked in an interview on what class options they got, Jayden Pagan says, “No, we didn’t get to choose any classes at all.” Pagan also talked about how “There are certain classes that you can’t take until you’re in upper school. We should be able to take them when we first start school, or take a pre-class, because if we have a bare minimum information on that class, we will be able to learn it much easier.” This is backed up when looking at the list of classes posted in each classroom. (See fig. 1, link here.) The only variance that can be seen is with the language classes, which consist of Spanish, German, and Latin. Other than that, the classes that students take are academic based, being literature, seminar, history, math, and science classes. There are also classes such as AP Research, and FOL, to which the latter is based on preparing and helping scholars in the application process for college. 

Looking deeper at the perspective on class choice, the only option for the required art credit is theatre, which only covers a small fraction of art. Some scholars express creativity differently, yet the only option they have is performing arts. According to Andre Canino, when asked about which classes he would want to add, he said he would add, “an art class, cooking class, technology, engineering, dance, psychology.” When asked to elaborate on the art classes, Canino said “I would like classes like pottery, painting, sketching, and music.” The support for more classes at AFHHS by the student body is getting clearer.

Overall, scholars at AFHHS show great interest in getting new classes, and having options when choosing them.