JACKSON TWP — The Seneca Valley School District is getting more than a dozen new traditional, blended and cyber classes in its program of studies for next school year.

The district also formed partnerships with Butler County Community College and Point Park University to give high school students college credits for courses taken in high school.

Matt McKinley, assistant superintendent for secondary instruction, presented the highlights for the 2018-19 program of studies for the secondary school students at Monday's board meeting.

Beefing up the computer science program was a priority in the additions.

New traditional classroom courses include three computer science courses: introduction to Python for grades 11 to 12, introduction to coding for grade 7 and arcade and game design for grade 8. New blended courses — classes that include traditional and cyber components — include advanced experience programming and honors unity 3D programming.

McKinley said the district took an audit for its computer science program about six years ago and found it lacking.

“So we've made tremendous changes,” he said. “I'm extremely excited about offerings in computer science for our students.”

New cyber courses have brought back at least one program offering that used to exist traditionally in the school, McKinley said. Principles of agriculture, food and natural resources is on the list of courses to add to the cyber program.

“We used to have those courses here a long time ago,” he said of the agriculture class. “Now we're able to bring some of those things back.”

Other new cyber courses include African American history, national security, restaurant management, advertising and sales promotion, sports and entertainment marketing, American music appreciation, classical music appreciation, music around the world, art history 1 and art history 2.

“The great thing about these is if we have one student interested, they can take it,” McKinley said of the cyber courses.

A partnership starting this school year with Butler County Community College will be expanded, said Tracy Vitale, Seneca Valley superintendent.

The community college began giving credit to Seneca Valley students for the College In High School intro to philosophy classes this school year. The partnership went so well, BC3 is adding speech, college writing, honors chemistry and algebra 2 to its list of accepted College in High School courses.

The district also began a new partnership with Point Park University, allowing dancers through Seneca Valley's Academy of Choice to enroll at Point Park as juniors after completing the program at Seneca Valley.

Students in grades seven to 12 will start scheduling for the 2018-19 school year later this month.