Southampton High School Unveils New Courses For 2022-23

When Southampton High School students begin choosing their classes for next year — a process that starts in mid-February for most — a handful of new options will be awaiting them.

“Every year, we do make some minor adjustments to our academic program based on the interests of our students,” Principal Brian Zahn explained during a recent Board of Education meeting, “and also some of the trends in terms of what we’re seeing with our programs and enrollment numbers.”

The biggest change centers on the Latin program, a source of indecision for the high school over the last several years. Offered from freshman through senior year, the language has seen continual declining enrollment, Zahn explained, while Italian is in high demand. And, conveniently, there is a teacher who is fluent already on staff, he said.

“We have, in surveying our kids, seen a really large interest in Italian that far exceeds what we are producing in Latin,” Zahn said. “Now, we knew that this time was going to be coming as we evaluated Latin over the past couple of years, so we are at that point where I think it’s time for us to really make a decision on that.”

The principal proposed phasing out Latin over the next three years to allow students who are currently enrolled to complete the program, while phasing in Italian starting next year — which drew criticism from School Board Vice President SunHe Sherwood-Dudley.

“I have mixed feelings about phasing out Latin,” she said. “Even though it’s a dying active language, it’s the foundation of so many other languages and it’s in science and it’s in our money and it’s on biology definitions, it helps with vocabulary. I do have mixed emotions about abandoning Latin.”

“I’ll tell you, SunHe, we do, too,” Zahn said, “and that’s why we’ve been dragging this along the way because we’ve been trying to preserve Latin for as long as we could, even up to last year, where we offered new Latin courses to try and save it.”

“I think we’ve exhausted every type of attempt we can have to try to preserve this,” Superintendent of Schools Nicholas Dyno added.

“But SunHe, we agree,” Zahn said. “It’s a conversation we don’t like having each year.”

After considering the feedback, Zahn confirmed on Tuesday that Latin will, indeed, be phased out, but the high school will continue offering the “Latin Mythology and Roots” elective, which includes basic language instruction.

In the science department, the AP environmental science course will be newly credentialed through the Suffolk County Community College Beacon program. The dually accredited course — which will allow students to earn both high school credit and, for an additional fee, college credit if they so choose — will be better tailored to place-based learning, Zahn explained, bringing students out into the field for classes in their immediate surroundings, which the current AP course does not include.

College credits earned through the program, which have a tuition rate of $57 each, can also be transferred to a “multitude of other colleges and universities,” according to the Beacon website.

“As opposed to taking an AP test and hoping the student scores high enough, this gives the credits automatically upon completion of the course,” Board Member Anastasia Gavalas noted.

The course changes will also expand the marine science research program into interdisciplinary action research to include humanities and other approaches, Zahn said. The English department will offer a reinvented creative writing elective, and the music department will teach music theory 1 and 2, also dually accredited through SUNY Beacon.

To address the learning gap as a result of remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, the high school will also start an Academic Learning Center for both mandated and recommended academic intervention services — a drop-in support center that will work around student schedules, Zahn explained.

“The academic learning center, I feel, is a really, really important program that we’ve been trying to get off the ground and I really feel excited about this,” he said. “We feel that we’re going to be able to capture many more kids than we’ve ever been before who can utilize and need those services.”

The high school course changes will cost the district between $75,000 and $90,000 in order to cover staffing, Dyno explained. Scheduling will start the week of February 14, followed by student meetings with counselors beginning February 28. Then, parents must review their children’s selections by the April 29 deadline.