By Colleen Moir, Managing Editor
In January, the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Board of Education turned down a monetary grant from Google to begin new AP STEM courses at Reynolds, West, Reagan and Parkland. While this decision was made with good intentions, it actually will close a door for many WS/FCS students wishing to advance their education.
AP STEM denotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses. These subjects are vital to a high school and college education, and taken at the advanced placement level, they can allow a student to build up college credit in these vital areas. Access to these courses is important, and, for the most part, they are currently only offered through the Career Center.
RJR and the other three schools were offered this grant because of a large presence of minority students that scored well on their PSATs, proving that the potential for high achievement in AP STEM courses was also present. The addition of these science and math courses would have been a great thing for Reynolds, and I’m sorry to see that the school board passed up the chance.
I attended the Career Center my junior year and currently attend as a senior, and I’ve learned a lot through the courses I’ve chosen to take. However, I’ve also seen the school grow tremendously while I’ve been a student, to the point where parking is a hassle and desks are squeezed into my classrooms. During registration, Career Center could not accept students during certain times of the day, explaining that its classes were full. It seems to me that the grant offered to our school system would be a blessing to the overcrowded Career Center, but the school board saw it differently.
The Board turned down the money, and cited the reason of preserving Career Center classes and enrollment. While it’s true that enrollment at the overcrowded Career Center would decrease, enrollment in these vital courses would increase, increasing the level of education in Forsyth County overall.
While the Career Center is a wonderful resource, the logistics of transportation to and from school for Career Center students can make attending an impossibility for some. Bus service has become more readily available and popular in recent years, but it still places limitations on students. Student drivers from most home schools must use the highway to get to the Career Center, a step that some might not be ready for. In order to best serve all student needs, as well as the county’s needs as a whole, the school board should have said yes to the grant.
Turning it down only served the Career Center and those capable of commuting to it. While it is true that a substantial decrease in enrollment in several science and math classes would have occurred if these classes were offered at the home schools, a smaller student body would also likely be beneficial to the Career Center. Students from all other schools but the four mentioned would continue to rely on the Career Center, and those who still wished to come could still attend. A smaller student body would make classes more readily available, and would cut down on many of the problems caused by large enrollment.
More AP classes means better-educated students entering better colleges with more credit, and this could only be a good thing for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools.
Mary Anne McClain • Mar 16, 2013 at 9:34 am
Well said…wish they could have heard this before making this decision!