What does it mean to go to Pine View? How much has changed?
In late 2019, a Pine View committee began discussing changes in the graduation requirements, vision statement, and mission statement of the school as questions arose about what it meant to attend Pine View and what it should mean. In the past, many students would spend much of their junior year and all of their senior year taking classes online, therefore missing out on the true Pine View education, experience, and community. Before the changes, their diplomas held the same weight as a student who attended each and every class on campus. The committee began to look at the school’s mission statement to create their new vision and define their expectations.
“What does a Pine View diploma mean?” Principal Dr. Stephen Covert said. “We really needed to have a vision for where we wanted to go.”
Eventually, after discussion between students, teachers, alumni, parents, and administrators, updated requirements were settled on. These included a mandate that the minimum number of classes or more needed to graduate per subject (three for science, four for math) must be taken on campus with a Pine View teacher.
“It was the students in one place, in the presence of high expectations taught by trained teachers. You can’t create this if you don’t have all of that in the same place at once,” Covert said.
Choir teacher Seth Gardner was an involved member of the committee; he was asked to be on it due to his position as a department chair and was one of the members who presented plans to the school board for approval.
“At the time, the only thing that differentiated us from other schools was that we required foreign language at the middle school level,” he said. “To get a Pine View diploma … We wanted to make sure there was something special about it.”
Online classes were a concern, because while the teachers are still licensed instructors, their classes aren’t designed for gifted students like Pine View curricula are, and the teachers aren’t necessarily certified to teach gifted material. So, if a student is going to attend Pine View, it was decided that they needed to truly experience the school and what it offers.
“If we are a full-time gifted magnet program, then the purpose of attending our school is to have access to a full-time gifted education and curriculum, then we need to make sure that students are accessing classes with gifted curriculum,” guidance counselor Ashley Byington said.
So, beginning with the Class of 2025, the current sophomores, not as many classes could be freely taken online. However, this didn’t mean that online classes weren’t an option anymore. Looking back a few years later, countless students still take geometry online and enroll in high-level calculus classes, to name a few. The change wasn’t about restriction; it was about setting a baseline for Pine View-style rigor.
“If you want to self-accelerate, go right ahead. There’s no limit on what you do,” Covert said. “It’s about making sure at a minimum you’ve taken this many classes on campus … and you have these common shared experiences when you graduate.”
However, both Covert and Gardner advise that if students choose to take a class online that is a prerequisite for a class they’ll be taking in person, that student has to strive to be prepared and have “just as high-level mastery as someone who took that class on campus,” Covert said.
Some students who have taken online classes share the same perspective. Eleventh-grader Addison Stewart, who took chemistry online her sophomore year, chose to take the class in order to take AP Biology on campus the next year.
“I think taking chemistry in person is definitely a better option … There’s no way I could take AP Chem,” she said. “It set me up okay for AP Bio, I’m doing pretty well, [though].”
Stewart also explained that the class was beneficial in that she could go at her own pace through the content, but that if a student struggles with absorbing information through reading and visually learning, it could be difficult.
While Stewart doesn’t fall under the new requirements, students who do are choosing to take classes online as well. Tenth-grader Teagan English opted not to take precalculus in person due to a classroom environment they didn’t enjoy and are currently taking the class online.
“It’s very self-guided,” English said. “It’s a lot harder to keep yourself motivated because you don’t have the teacher right there … I think, if you have the opportunity to take a class in person, you probably should.”
English also said that while they do fall under the new graduation requirements, it wasn’t an issue for them, as they’re planning to continue with math through senior year anyway.
As shown by English and many others, even though this policy is now in effect for two of the four high school classes, many still choose to take online classes. According to Byington, the biggest change was in the world language department.
“We don’t have students any longer taking their world language class online,” she said. “Now those students are taking all three of the world language credits on campus.”
So, reflecting on the policy change a few years later, while some has changed – the Pine View environment remains. Some students will likely always take geometry online, and many will self-accelerate to take higher level classes at Pine View. It comes down to the path the student wants to take, and where they want to go with their high school years, while still ensuring they are a true member of the Pine View community getting the education they deserve.
A QR code to this article appears in print on March 9, 2022, News, Page 2, of The Torch.
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