By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
For the last few years, Burlington High School teachers Ken Savaglia and Jeremy Fitch have noticed a somewhat-alarming trend.
When it comes to fulfilling the “personal finance” .5 credit graduation requirement students are gravitating toward the easier of the courses.
With a change made by the Burlington Area School District School curriculum and policy committees Monday night, more students will have a “two for the price of one” option in their schedule now.
The two committees OK’ed a change that will allow the regular economics class – vs. consumer education, personal finance or “On Your Own” classes – to teach the personal finance curriculum.
Before the change, students had to take one of the latter three classes. As a result, Savaglia and Fitch have numerous sections of Consumer Ed to teach, but are down to just two sections of the regular economics class.
Fitch said Monday night that the trend doesn’t fit well with BASD’s push for college or career readiness.
“(We’re not working for) more kids taking an economics class, but kids taking a more difficult economics class,” he said.
Savaglia, who has been at the high school as a teacher for 15 years – the last 12 teaching economics – has seen the trend as well.
“Since we dropped the economics requirement … you can possibly get through BHS without taking an econ course,” he explained.
For college-bound students, especially those interested in business management, the more rigorous economics class would be the better option because Econ 101 will likely be a first-year college course for those students.
Savaglia said the two sections of regular economics don’t even reflect students wanting that class.
“They’re there by default, because it fits into their schedule,” Savaglia said.
In addition to the rigor required in the course, making the change to that curriculum to allow personal finance information being taught may make it easier for students to fit the class into their schedules.
As Assistant Superintendent Connie Zinnen explained, students may be making the choice not to take economics because they have to fulfill the personal finance goal – not an economics class goal.
When asked, Savaglia said the curriculum for economics has opened up in the switch from block scheduling to a traditional scheduling table. With the slightly longer classes, about a week to a week and a half has become available.
Savaglia said that students will not only have classroom instruction, but will be able to do work online to fulfill the personal finance work.
As board President David Thompson said, “You’re giving them an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.”
Zinnen agreed.
“We didn’t necessarily see any negatives,” she said, adding that BHS Principal Eric Burling thought the change would be positive as well.
BASD Superintendent Peter Smet added, “I see it as an advantage, also.”
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