Biomechanics and sports medicine. Gourmet and PCB Biology. These are all brand new classes or current ones facing major course revision. Every year, classes like these keep the New Trier Program of Studies fresh and new.
New classes are created by teachers in each department, and face a rigorous, full year journey to existence. “Typically, the faculty members come up with the idea for the new class. Then the Department Chair has to approve. If they do, the department head helps to develop the official curriculum for the class’” said Matt Ottaviano, Assistant Principal for Administrative Services.
It doesn’t end there. After Department Chair approval, course creators go before the curriculum council. “The council is made up of members from each department. They’ll typically ask a few questions and make sure there aren’t any problems, like the new class being too similar to a current one.
“For example, one year, they tried to make an Animation class, but unfortunately it was too similar to a CAD class that already existed. If we had offered both, students interested in animation would have been split between the two classes, and their would have been the possibility of neither being able to run because of it” he said.
Finally, the class must go before the school board for the ultimate approval. “Sometimes the school board has questions. Usually they’re about mundane stuff, like cost, or if they think more research needs to be done, stuff like that. In the end, the school board has the final say, with Paul Sally, the assistant superintendent being in charge. Overall, it’s a year long process, and they hear about new classes and class changes and name changes every October” said Ottaviano.
This process happens every year, as New Trier feels that the curriculum can always be tweaked. Sometimes it’s entirely new classes, such as Biomechanics. Other times, it’s current classes facing a major overhaul, such as PCB Biology. More often than not, however, it seems that many of these changes are purely aesthetic, with seven current classes simply changing their names.
Still, with the good comes the bad. As new classes enter and succeed among the students, some suffer from little fanfare and even less enrollment. “Every new class isn’t going to be an instant success, and some may have so little enrollment that we simply have to cancel it for the year. Still, we’ll keep it in the curriculum for a few years, to see if it can gain legs and become popular among the students.” said Ottaviano.
Then there are the classes that were a successful part of the curriculum for years, but are no longer able to run.
Classes that were once popular now clamor for attention, and more importantly, enrollment. Integrated History and Science, a class that ran for years, was not able to do so this year. Student interest dropped off, and the class had to be cancelled.
“It’s often hard to say why classes that were once popular have stopped being so. Sometimes it’s more obvious, though. There was the class, “Ethics and Literature, which was very popular for years. But then its usual teacher retired and interest declined.” said Ottaviano
That time it was obvious why. Sometimes though, it just seems like certain courses run their course, and lose their legs. We’ve got to re-write the program of studies every year, and if a certain class consistently can’t find an audience, well, it just has to go,” he said.
‘Every new class isn’t going to be an instant success, and some may have so little enrollment that we simply have to cancel it for the year.’

But what about the few students who did sign up for the class, only for it to be cancelled? “I mean, it’s not fun to hear that something you signed up for can’t run, but it’s not the end of the world. It leaves room for another class, or maybe a free period. Besides, if it has a decent amount of support, you can always start a club,” said Junior Michael Pappas.
“I’ll admit, it can be pretty worrying. I know that Latin 5 only has around fifteen students each year. It’s continuously run so far, but it makes me nervous. It would suck if I wasn’t able to take it just because not enough people are interested,” said junior Zalman Gagerman.
Through it all, the program of studies continues to change each year. Classes come in, classes change, classes end, and they’ll continue to do so for the foreseeable future.