TCS administrators made alterations to the curriculum for the 2023-2024 academic year  in Mathematics, Science, Philosophy, Spanish, and Art to improve the level of academic rigor in high school.

11th graders will have the opportunity to take courses that only 12th graders were allowed because it is believed that these classes will be more beneficial if they could take them earlier in high school.

“I think that the changes that will be implemented for 2023 and 2024 will benefit the students in an academic way,” Paul Navarra, HS Vice Principal, said.

For instance, Discrete Math will be discontinued and replaced with Data Science II, and Financial Math will now be offered to 11th graders; formerly only 12th graders could take this class.

“We decided to get rid of Discrete Math and change it to Data Science II since many students really liked this subject and wanted to delve deeper into that topic,” Navarra said.

In the science department what used to be Earth and Space Science will now be called Earth and Environmental Science and will have a bigger emphasis on the Earth’s physical processes, natural resources, and environmental challenges.

“The curriculum of that class was about nine units and only one of them was about space. So we did not want to give false advertising to the students, that’s why we changed it,” Navarra said.

There will be two big changes in the Philosophy department. For 11th graders Philosophy will be called Pensar en nuestro tiempo and it will have a less philosophical approach. Whereas in 12th grade it will be named Life Purpose, a subject that will be about self-awareness and applying that to the student’s personal life.   

“Think of Life Purpose as if it is like an applied philosophy. Students learn about themselves and then apply that to their life.” Navarra said.

Next year 11th grade students will also have the opportunity of taking AP Spanish and Literature as an optative course that used to be offered only in 12th grade.

“This year only 12th graders were allowed to take AP Spanish and Literature. So what we are allowing 11th and 12th graders to take AP Spanish and Literature” Navarra said.

The art department will also have multiple changes. Art for 12 graders will only be a semester-long course, whereas Art I and II, Sculpture I and II, and Painting I and II will be offered as optatives for 11th Grade.

“The reason we decided to put the Art´s as optatives for 11th Grade is that we have some math courses that are semesters courses. And so we wanted to make sure are more options for students to take and combine those with the math semester course,” Navarra said.