Beginning in 2017, the Social Studies Department will begin to undergo changes: next year, social studies courses currently available only to certain grade levels will be made accessible to more, and in the fall of 2018, AP Government, AP Macroeconomics, and AP Psychology will be extended from semester to full-year courses.  

Next year, AP Human Geography and AP World History will be available to Allie Goldman
upperclassmen, Law and Sociology will be open to sophomores, and AP Macroeconomics, AP Government, and AP Psychology will be available to sophomores and juniors. The purpose of this part of the change, opening courses to more people, is part of a Social Studies Department initiative to allow students more choice in their future, according to Social Studies Department Supervisor, Mr. Shawn McCusker.

“I think we’re unique in that sense… looking to students and saying ‘you have choices as to what you become, and what kind of a path you might take,’” stated Mr. McCusker.

As for the following year, 2018-19, AP Gov, AP Macro, and AP Psych will be extended from semester to full-year courses. For AP Gov and AP Macro, the extension of the class also means the addition of another AP course: AP Gov will have AP Comparative Government, a class examining and comparing government and policies on a global scale, added to it, and AP Macro will have AP Microeconomics added to it, becoming AP Economics.  

Both AP Microeconomics and AP Comparative Government have never been offered at LHS; however, with the planned set-up, students will not be able to take the classes on their own. AP Micro will be grouped with AP Macro as AP Econ, and AP Comparative will be grouped with AP US Government as AP Gov.

“It really is two distinct classes,” said AP Government teacher Ms. Amy Holtsford. “But you don’t have the opportunity to only sign up for one of those.”

This could pose an issue for some students, particularly the current class of sophomores, because students must take a semester of both government and consumer education in order to graduate. While students will be able to take AP Economics and AP Psychology their sophomore through senior year, they will only be able to take AP Government their senior year, and the Class of 2019 will have only their junior year to take AP Macro prior to the course extensions.

For those with full schedules, this means either dropping a class to make space or taking the regular classes instead –  either one over summer school or both during the year – which will remain one-semester.

Annalisa Waddick, a sophomore with a full schedule, is concerned about the changes because she was previously planning on taking both AP Macro and AP Government.

“It would have been better to know these things were coming so that we could have planned further ahead,” Waddick stated. “It means I’ll have to pick one, instead of doing both, because I do have a full schedule. I might have to do one as just a regular [class], because regular [government] is available over the summer.”

This sentiment is one of Ms. Holtsford’s chief concerns: “I hope not, but I think that we might be – at least initially – pushing people into summer school.”

While the change was initially planned for next school year, it was pushed back to 2018-2019 in order to alleviate some of the impact it would have on students, however “that doesn’t help the current sophomores because the current sophomores already needed to know it,” stated Ms. Holtsford. “You have to know a few years in advance that this change is happening so you can readjust your schedule.”

Working with the guidance department and dispersing as much information as possible about the changes, Mr. McCusker hopes to make the transition as smooth as possible. While acknowledging that “this [will] be a problem if nobody knows this going into their senior year,” he also looks forward to what the social studies curriculum will look like after the changes.

“I wanted to have more options…as many options as possible, which is why all of these classes are opening up, and we’re opening – expanding, diversifying – the things that we teach,” said Mr. McCusker.

While the long-term implications for things like individual course enrollment cannot be discerned until they have actually occurred, it is clear that, as Holtsford stated, “our social studies curriculum is undergoing a massive, massive change.”