Clear Fork drops electives ahead of upcoming school year

BELLVILLE — Emily Marquette is supposed to be on summer vacation.

Instead, the guidance counselor at Clear Fork High School is back at her desk, rearranging the master schedule she completed at the end of the 2022-2023 school year.

Class schedules are in flux after Clear Fork’s board of education voted not to replace four teachers at a July board meeting. The high school now has one fewer science teacher, English teacher, high school fitness instructor and social studies teacher.

Marquette didn’t complain, but said it’s been difficult shuffling the schedule around just four weeks from the start of school.

“I feel like I’m redoing it all,” she said. “I think that’s an exaggeration, but it definitely feels that way.

“It’s hard for me right now, but once school starts, it’s hard for the teachers. It’s hard for the students. That’s kind of the bigger picture.”

High school principal Brian Brown said it’s difficult to know exactly how many students will be impacted, but nearly 20 electives will be cut and other core classes consolidated.

“It does affect the whole master schedule,” Brown said. “When you make changes, there’s that ripple effect. If we have to move an English class, what is that going to displace?”

Marquette said the most important thing is making sure students can get the core classes they need to graduate.

“Whether I’m supposed to be working or not, the kids are coming. They have to go somewhere,” she said. “They can’t be in study hall all afternoon.”

The elimination of several staff positions is part of the reason courses were cut, but it’s not the only reason.

According to Brown, many of the courses were taken off the schedule after the school board voted to impose a minimum class size of 10 students at the high school, excluding special education, college credit plus and credit recovery courses.

Brown said in the past, the school has dropped classes with fewer than 10 students at the start of the school year. But the board’s vote means the high school had to drop classes that didn’t meet the 10-student requirement at the end of registration last spring.

“Most (of those classes) would have been filled up the week prior to school,” Brown said. “We lost the flexibility to do that.”

Brown said a handful of courses were cut because of the specific teachers who left the school. Some electives didn’t have a standard curriculum; they were classes teachers built from scratch due to a passion for the subject matter.

Students who were enrolled in zoology, integrated science, energy science, calculus, high school physics or a course on ecology and the environment now have a gap in their schedule. (A post-secondary physics course remains available.) Art IV and an elective weightlifting class were also cut.

Classes with a special focus on the Holocaust, Vietnam War and Entertainment History have all been scrapped. English electives including the Bible as Literature, Dystopian Novels, Sports Literature, African Literature, British Literature, Shakespeare and Fiction to Film were all eliminated.

The school’s STEM program, which was launched just last school year, also took a hit. Instead of three robotics offerings, there will now be just one. Marquette is still trying to determine if a computer coding class will be offered.

While some classes are too small to survive, other required courses will become larger as a result.

Brown said in past years, the school tried to keep English classes between 15 and 20 students to facilitate discussion.

“We’re gonna see a lot of classes well over 20 (students),” he said. “We had some that looked like they were going to be over 30. We’ve got some work to do there to try and get those down a little.”

Brown said he’s not upset with the board or the administration over their decision, but he wishes the high school had more time to adjust to the changes.

“I think the biggest problem right now was the processing and the timing of announcing these cuts,” he said.

“I understand where the board is at. They want to make some cuts, save some money. We do have a dwindling population.”

Brown estimated that over the last 12 years, enrollment at Clear Fork High School has fallen by about 120 students.

“We’re gonna run a little over 500 (this year),” Brown said. “We used to be well over 600.”

Kourtney Kucirek, a high school family and consumer sciences teacher and the co-president of the Clear Fork Valley Education Association, said the staff and course cuts will negatively impact students.

“We think all of them should have been replaced because that’s what’s best for kids,” Kucirek said. “Especially in the high school level, you want kids to take classes they’re interested in.”

Ed Kossick, a teacher at the middle school and union co-president, said he open enrolls his own children in the district, but recent events make him question that choice.

“If there aren’t any electives to take in high school, what’s the benefit?” he said. “As these things disappear, what becomes the benefit to coming here?

“I think there are a lot of these trickle-down effects that people weren’t taking into account,” he added. “They were looking at a big picture thing, they didn’t necessarily look at what was actually going to happen.”

School board president Lori McKee and district treasurer Jon Mason said in July the choice not to fill certain teaching positions and combine administrative roles was due to the district’s financial situation.

In a five-year forecast released in May, Mason predicted the district would be operating at an annual deficit of $892,865 by the end of the 2024-2025 school year.

Mason, who was hired a year ago, said the district was not in a good financial position prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal relief funds helped Clear Fork stave off deficit spending for a few years.

In Mason’s view, the resignation of several high school teachers allowed the district an opportunity to downsize without cutting staff.

Staff reporter at Richland Source since 2019. I focus on education, housing and features. Clear Fork alumna. Always looking for a chance to practice my Spanish. Got a tip? Email me at [email protected]. More by Katie Ellington Serrao