Nov 15, 2012 2 min read

Trinity Area School Board voted down a proposal Thursday to cut several elective classes at the high school.

The administration had recommended cutting more than a dozen electives, including advanced public speaking, French I-IV, ethnic cooking, guitar, sewing, vocal ensemble and color guard and majorettes. The original plan to combine some electives and cut others to make room for new ones lost by a narrow 4-5 vote. The board proposed the cuts because of low enrolment.

Voting in favor of the cuts were directors Scott Day, Colleen Interval, Jenene Hupp and Sandra Clutter. Opposed were Tamara Salvatori, Shawn Mulac, Jennifer Morgan, Henry Clemens and Penny Calaffe.

Although the motion was voted down, the electives are not safe yet. Board members voted to reconvene the meeting Monday at 6 p.m. at the administrative building. There, they will decide whether a similar proposal made by the education committee will be passed.

Board president Scott Day spoke in favor of making the changes as proposed by the administration.

“I know nobody likes change,” Day said, “but things do change. When I graduated from Trinity in 1986, they were still teaching Latin. They did away with it and everybody survived.”

Under the academic proposal, French electives would be replaced with Chinese courses, which some members argued better-prepared students for today’s global economy.