Course titles to change at Area 30 after meeting

The Area 30 Career Center Education Interlocal Board of Directors held its monthly meeting Tuesday with updates given on the progress of the balanced calendar as well as title changes for courses for the upcoming school year.

As previously discussed at last month's meeting, the board of directors is working toward creating a balanced calendar for all schools in Putnam County. Progress continued Tuesday morning as superintendents began creating their calendars for the 2012-2013 school year.

"We agreed that in principle we will work on corresponding dates," said South Putnam Superintendent Bruce Bernhardt.

It is looking like schools will begin on or around Aug. 13. However, the balanced calendar may be put off until the following school year, 2013-2014.

In an effort to keep up with the times, Area 30 is working toward changing the College and Career Pathways course titles.

"We are making sure we are teaching current curriculum," said Executive Director Lora Busch. "In order to stay current in educational and industry needs this is the process they've gone through."

The course title changes come after nearly three years of research between more than 250 business, industry and community representatives, postsecondary faculty and secondary educators and administrators.

"We made sure that we were teaching things that industry specialists found important," Busch said. "We want to help students explore and help them in their college and career."

It is one of the primary tasks of the three-year Indiana College and Career Pathway initiative to align college and career preparation courses into a logical sequence.

The changes will delete insignificant courses that do not fit into a Pathway sequence or have low enrollment, combine courses that were duplicative or could be stronger as one course instead of two, specifying the content and standards for exploration and introductory courses as well as re-labeling many introductory and foundational ninth- and 10th-grade courses to more clearly describe their purpose.

These changes will officially go into effect during the 2013-2014 school year as most schools already have scheduled their students into courses for the 2012-2013 school year.