Nov 1, 2012 2 min read

Trinity Area School Board delayed a vote Thursday to cut several elective classes at the high school.Instead, the board will approve the high school program of studies for the 2013-14 school year at its Nov. 15 meeting.Administration has recommended cutting more than a dozen electives, including advanced public speaking, French I-IV, ethnic cooking, guitar, sewing, color guard and majorettes and vocal ensemble.Superintendent Paul Kasunich said the district is combining some of the electives in order to reduce redundancies and is eliminating some of the electives because of low enrollment.For example, Kasunich said, introduction to business, investment technology and personal finance I and II will be combined in business applications.The French classes have been replaced with Mandarin, considered more valuable for students preparing to compete in today’s economy, where China and India are two of the world’s leading emerging markets.Color guard and majorettes will still be available, but will be after-school activities instead of elective classes.”We’re eliminating redundancy that exists in some of the classes, and where we were able to combine or merge classes, we did,” said Kasunich, who said he worked with department chairs to develop alternative classes.”We’ve been careful about what we cut, and we’ve added substantially to what we offer. Change is hard.”Two district residents criticized the decision to drop many of the electives and said students, staff and members of the community should have been involved in determining which classes, if any, should be eliminated.Following the school board meeting, two school directors said they disagree with the decision to cut many of the electives and plan to discuss the proposed eliminations at the education meeting scheduled for Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. The meeting is open to the public.In another matter, the board voted 6-3 to advertise for requests for proposals for school bus transportation for the 2013-14 school year. Voting in favor were directors Scott Day, Tamara Salvatori, Colleen Interval, Jenene Hupp, Shawn Mulac and Sandra Clutter. Opposed were Jennifer Morgan, Henry Clemens and Penny Caleffe.