By Hannah Curran, Editor
TRUSSVILLE — The Trussville City Schools (TCS) Board of Education (BOE) heard from members of TCS about proposed additions to the Hewitt-Trussville High School (HTHS) curriculum, along with the change to Husky Hour during its workshop on Monday, Dec. 12.
Lacey DeShazo explains the AP African American Studies elective course. (Photo by Hannah Curran)
One proposed addition to the HTHS curriculum is the Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies elective.
Lead AP at HTHS, Lacey DeShazo, explained that this course would be a pilot elective. The AP College Board selected 60 schools to pilot this curriculum with full implementation in 2024-25. This course has only been taught one year so far, this current year, in just a few schools across the United States. It is very new, but the College Board is invested in ensuring that students have skills in the future that would translate to college and college credit; HTHS would be in the second year of this.
Twenty students would have to sign up for the course to offer it, and DeShazo believes it would be offered to 10th to 12th-grade students. However, the official logistics have not been determined at the time of the board meeting.
“We are excited to hopefully offer it for a few reasons,” Deshazo said. “Number one, one of our big goals in the AP program as a whole at your HTHS is to try to reach as many students as possible; we believe that every high school student going to college should at least take one AP class.”
DeShazo said that the classes are proven by data and statistics to prepare students better for college to help them not drop out of college their freshman year.
“We want every student to have that opportunity in high school,” DeShazo said. “One thing that we do run into, though, is that students feel like they can’t do the work. They often feel like, since their core classes, they don’t want to go into that quarter AP; they’re like, ‘I’ll just take the general class.’ So by offering an elective like this, which is really academic, we are hoping to appeal to a wider range of students.”
HTHS is part of the AP College Ready grant, meaning students participating in this program will benefit from that grant.
Molly Cook and Chris Eubanks explain the Global Seal of Biliteracy Program. (Photo by Hannah Curran)
In other news, Co-Department Heads Spanish teacher Molly Cook and French teacher Chris Eubanks explained to the board the Global Seal of Biliteracy Program that would be offered to HTHS students. Alabama is one of 49 states that have approved the Global Seal of Biliteracy Program.
“This program has moved out of the pilot phase, it’s been piloted in Alabama through a few schools, Vestavia and Montgomery Academy, and one of the schools in Madison City had already piloted the program before it became official, but it’s been approved by the state in the syllabi literacy program,” Cook said.
Cook said this would be an excellent chance for kids to demonstrate their knowledge in a language other than English, as well as really embrace their heritage in that other language.
“It’s an endorsement that a student can earn to prove that they have a certain proficiency in two different languages,” Eubanks said. “The good thing about it is that it’s available for any student, it doesn’t have to necessarily be a student that’s taking a foreign language class. They have to prove literacy in English; it could be ELL students, students who have a home language other than English.”
Eubanks explained that they would have to prove literacy in English as well as any other second language.
There are two types of seals: the state seal, which was approved last spring, and the global seal. Students could possibly achieve both if they wanted to.
“The state seal would go on the diploma,” Cook said. “Then the global seal would be sort of a more advanced recognition.”
Students, through these seals, can say, “I demonstrate this proficiency in English and another language,” and when they go to employers or apply to colleges or scholarships, they can say, “I’ve earned a state seal,” or “I’ve earned a global seal.”
“What’s been recommended to us mainly through the Vestavia Foreign Language Department was to go ahead and have students express interest at the end of their second year of language,” Cook said.
HTHS offers three different language courses, Latin, Spanish, and French. Eubanks said this would be a program in which the Latin students could also be involved, except they would have a different type of assessment.
Acting HTHS Principal Joy Young explains the changes to Husky Hour. (Photo by Hannah Curran)
The board also heard from Acting Principal Joy Young about the proposed changes to Husky Hour during the second semester.
“We’re just talking about a change in one area, which is the period that connected lunch,” Young said. “Four days it will be connected to fourth period, and then one day it’ll be connected with fifth period.”
Young explained that HTHS will keep the same bell and class schedule.
“The only thing we’re changing, of course, is the way that we do lunch,” Young said. “So instead of the Flex Huskie Hour time where we had lunch embedded in with a study time, what we’re doing now is our lunch and study time is going to be most of the time to fourth period.”
What that looks like is all students will eat in the lunchroom when it’s their scheduled time to eat. Then they’ll return to their fourth-period class, and they will have a study.
“Four days a week, that’s a 20-minute study time, and they’ll be in there with their fourth-period teacher on Thursdays,” Young said. “Wednesdays, they’ll be with their fifth-period teachers. For our seniors, they are going to have the option to stay in the lunchroom or sit on the senior patio, which is attached to our lunch room. Or if they want to return back for their study time with their fourth-period class, they can do that; that’s their option.”
Students will be allowed to have their phones in the lunchroom, but once they return to class, it will be placed in a phone caddy.
Thursdays will be longer with 55-minute study times, which students and teachers can utilize for make-up class work.
Teachers would have to communicate with other teachers to make sure students can complete makeup work. Also, students can make up work on another day of the week during study time.
“We feel really good about this change,” Young said. “We’re doing it for safety purposes, and we are also doing it to help our lunchroom staff, who have been quite frazzled with trying to serve 1,600 students in 50 to 55 minutes.”
