The Galesburg School District Superintendent says despite what you’ve seen on social media — no, some technology courses long taught at Galesburg High School aren’t going away.
A teacher of those courses who declined to be interviewed says on social media that courses like keyboarding, robotics, coding, and other classes are all going away, and he expects to be teaching other things next year.
Superintendent John Asplund tells WGIL while it’s true the teacher in question will likely be teaching something else, the courses AREN’T being dropped.
“In the menu of options that are going to be offered for our students, if you only looked at one department, it may look like those classes are going away,” says Asplund. “But, you have to look at it from the whole scope of the school. Some of those courses that have been labeled in one department really needed to be moved to another department. Really, that’s not even the school’s decision. That’s because the State Board of Education has what’s called ‘course codes.’ Those course codes then correspond…you have to be able to match a class that you teach with a state-approved course code, so that students can get credit.”
That said, Asplund says there’s always a possibility that the classes could not be offered, if a minimum 15 students aren’t enrolled in them. Plus, Asplund says, he also has to make sure that whoever teaches the courses is certified to teach them, and that in cases like keyboarding, they should start to be taught a lot earlier than high school.
“We want to make sure that we have properly-certificated people that are teaching classes in the proper coded areas, so that our students get credit,” says Asplund. “But then, also, with the vocational side of things, I won’t get too much in the weeds here, but we could get some funding from the federal government for some of those classes.”
HEAR OUR FULL INTERVIEW WITH DR. ASPLUND THURSDAY AT 5PM ON GALEBSURG’S EVENING NEWS ON WGIL, WGIL.COM, AND WGIL ON THE TUNEIN RADIO APP.
