Seneca Valley DME

JACKSON TWP — Seneca Valley high schoolers will be able to enroll in new classes next school year.

Assistant superintendent Matthew McKinley presented several course additions and changes to the district’s Program of Studies at a school board meeting Monday, Jan. 8, that would affect Seneca Valley Intermediate and Senior High School students in the fall.

Course additions are made in response to student interest, McKinley said, and correspond with five career pathways to promote career readiness.

The pathways are: arts, communication and media; business, management and information technology; education, public safety, and law; health, medical, and human services; and industry and engineering technology.

This year, 20% of students selected the arts pathway, 22% selected business, 21% opted for engineering, 22% chose health and 15% selected education, McKinley said.

“We’re also taking steps into editing the curriculum of existing courses,” McKinley said. “(Teachers) are not going to be experts in all these career areas, but when they have an opportunity to genuinely connect what they’re teaching in class with a career, we’ve asked them to do that.”

As some classes are added, others are dropped.

Courses to be dropped next year will be based on student demand, and have yet to be determined, communications director Linda Andreassi said Wednesday.

New in-person courses in the 2024-25 school year include criminal investigations, fashion design and merchandising and a contemporary dance class held at Seneca Valley Academy of Choice’s Drop-in Center. Several new business writing and art courses, as well as two business classes offered through Robert Morris University will be available virtually.

Additionally, students who have completed all available classes in certain subjects but are interested in continuing to pursue their studies can opt to take personalized learning courses.

New personalized courses will be offered in creative wood, interior design, French, Spanish, graphics, architectural drawing and biotech lab, McKinley said.

“When you look at those (personalized learning courses), you might say, well those are courses we already have,” McKinley said. “The kids that have taken these courses, but want more — and we’ve run out of courses for them to take — have the advanced experience opportunity where they meet with the teacher, they create their learning goals for the semester, for the year and they work through this.”

Board director Fred Peterson said he was excited about McKinley’s presentation, but expressed concern about the district being able to sustain course additions amid statewide and nationwide teacher shortages and reported struggles of school districts meeting mandated standards.

“Do we have the resources to meet the enthusiasm of all of these students?” Peterson asked. “How does all your creativity, enthusiasm and excitement blend in with the friction created by the system?”

McKinley said additional courses are recommended not only by students, but made possible out of staff interest, stating that with a new course, teachers “are going to see it through and they won’t let it fail.”

“When teachers are proposing courses to us, one of our requirements is there needs to be strong student interest,” McKinley said. “But almost every time there is strong staff interest, as well. And so, (teachers) have a pretty good grasp already on a lot of the content, but they’re willing to do the extra work.”

“For the criminal investigation (course), (the teacher) has flooded me with information,” he said. “She is all over it. I have not a worry in the world that that course is going to be ready for next school year — same with fashion design and some of the others.”

Noting unique school cultures, mentorship opportunities for new educators, influx of veteran teachers interviewing with the district and a “strong collective bargaining agreement,” superintendent Tracy Vitale answered Peterson by saying Seneca Valley has “not seen a teacher shortage yet.”

“We value the profession,” Vitale said. “The profession is not valued across the nation. It is valued here at Seneca Valley. We are not perfect, but because of it we have not seen a teacher shortage. We have seen teachers leaving other districts, and we’re getting more and more veteran teachers interviewing in our interview process.”