School Board Approves Literacy Course, Cutting Back Family and Consumer Sciences Courses

The State College Area School District Board of Directors voted to eliminate Family and Consumer Science classes at the seventh and eighth grade level Monday night. At the same time the board approved a seventh grade academic literacy course. 

Over the past few weeks, a number of people have addressed the board, voicing support for traditional Family and Consumer Science courses.

District officials say the opportunity to add the academic literacy course at this time was made possible through multiple retirements of the Family and Consumer Science staff. No jobs were cut at the middle school.

The academic literacy course is a yearlong course designed to improve students’ reading and writing skills, as well as their ability to think critically. The course is supposed to meet the needs of all levels of learners. It’s not considered to be a remediation course or standardized test preparation, district officials say. 

Sixth grades will still take FCS classes. The curriculum is being rewritten so that seventh and eighth grade students learn the FCS material in other courses. 

“There is a lot of valuable content for students in the FCS standards. We will be putting together a cross-curricular team of teachers to re-write the sixth grade course and create a meaningful experience for students in the stand-alone course as well as connecting the content into other courses,” says Secondary Director of Curriculum Jacquelyn Martin. “For example, describing a well-balanced menu using dietary guidelines could be taught in a health class. Another example focusing on understanding the relationship of managing income, expenses and savings could be addressed in mathematics.” 

Previously, time put into literacy at the middle level was significantly less than other high-performing schools, district officials say. The new literacy course will allow seventh grade students to receive a double block of literacy, or about 90 minutes of instruction, during the school day.

According to Martin, the new literacy course will be added over a two-year span. In 2013-14, the course will meet every other day for one semester, during an “exploratory” period and could be expanded in 2014-15.

Related coverage: 

• School Board Approves Budget, Includes Tax Hike (June 11)