March 29, 2024

Low enrollment in French four allows for only one period

By Parker Sublette

Staff Writer

Mira Costa will only be offering a single available period for French four students in the 2016-2017 school year. While it may seem limiting, the low enrollment in the class makes it so that no more than one period is necessary.

Mrs.Resnikoff indicated that only thirty-six students are currently signed up for next year’s level four French class. However, since there will only be one available period, it is likely that the enrollment will drop lower due to scheduling conflicts, Resnikoff said.

When a similar scenario played out in the past seven French four students were forced to drop the class, that would be about twenty percent of the current class, since there are only twenty-two students currently in advanced placement French. If the class is forced to be only one period then the AP class next year would only be about ten people Resnikoff said. It seems that if seven people are already twenty percent of a classes’ population, then not much can be done to improve enrollment.

The maximum for number of students in a class is thirty-six and that if a thirty-seventh student were to enroll in the class, it might require the school to open an additional period for the class, which in itself might increase enrollment further, Resnikoff said. It seems that a single student entering a class shouldn’t have such an adverse effect, especially if it might force a class to split into two very small classes.

Many of the current level three French  students who have not enrolled or do not plan to enroll in the class next year are not doing so because of limited period options but instead because of either lack of interest or the feeling that since they have the number of foreign language credits necessary for U.C. schools, junior French Student Lazlo Paul said.

Even if there were smaller or more available classes many French three students indicated in a survey that they would choose still not to take French four. It seems that enrollment will most likely stay low whether or not class availability opens up.

Level three French student Ben Falley corroborates this sentiment, Falley indicated that most French three students have little interest in taking French four whether or not there would be multiple periods or one period. The overwhelming opinion of the French three students seems to be that the low period availability is not the prime reason behind the choice to not take the class.

However, a survey of French three of students also showed that about 50% of them might have enrolled in the class if there were more period availabilities. While this might seem like making more periods of French four available would increase the class size substantially, in actuality it would only increase it by about fifteen to twenty students, a minute number when compared to the size of most classes.

While it might seem that the large class size and limited class availability would be the main reason that students would not sign up for the class, especially since it is a funnel into AP French, it is apparent that the class simply holds little interest for most current French students.

Despite the fact that the limited class availability will further lower enrollment in the class, it is obvious that no manner of schedule finagling will improve the class size to a substantial enough amount to really warrant such changes.

 

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