New books, courses added at Athens City Schools

by Erica Bush
For The Post

While Athens High School students will be reading two new books in their classes next school year, Ohio University English faculty are looking for other books to be listed in their students’ experiences.

At its Feb. 21 meeting, Athens City Schools Board of Education approved "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone" for the district’s reading list.

Principal Mike Meek said the books will provide a different kind of literary knowledge for students and prepare them for the variety of books they might read in college.           

But a member of the English faculty at Ohio University believes "Harry Potter" should be placed on the middle school list if it must be added.

“(Adding 'Harry Potter') is dumbing down our educational process to add such mainstream books to a high school,” said Elly Writes, a former high school English teacher and graduate student currently teaching English 151 at OU.

Writes said she would like her freshmen students to have an awareness of the diversity of writers working today as well as an exposure to classic literature. Among the classic books she would like freshmen to have read are "Of Mice and Men," "Catcher In the Rye" and "Go Tell It On the Mountain."

All three of these books are on the reading list in the Athens City School District for either the junior high or high school, said Cindy Winner, Athens High School assistant principal.

In addition to the new readings, several new courses are being added to the school’s curriculum to meet students’ needs and state regulations, Meek said.

The high school courses will not require additional funding or teachers within the high school, Superintendent Carl Martin said.

With the exception of advanced physical education/first aid, the school board has approved the courses, Martin said.

Not all proposed courses are new, Meek said. Courses such as honors advanced ecology are being upgraded from a comprehensive level to an honors level, which covers material in greater depth, as well as present college-preparatory material. For example, honors advanced ecology will require a greater number of field experiences and lab work, Meek said.

The district will offer other courses such as art of cinema, an introduction to film and cinema development; introduction to network administration, basic network fundamentals; and upgrading and troubleshooting computers, hands-on experience in computer repair and improvement, to all grade levels to prepare students for college, Meek said.

Teachers and students collaborated for more than a year to create the course proposals, Meek said.