TUSTIN : Curriculum Changes Given Tentative OK

The Tustin Unified School District Board of Education last week tentatively approved some changes in the curriculum for middle and high school students.

Starting next school year, science will be a one-year requirement for sixth-grade students instead of a one-semester course as currently taught.

A course on world culture and democracy will be offered to 10th-graders. Currently, social science classes are available to high school freshmen, juniors and seniors but not to sophomores, officials said.

Also starting in September, high school freshmen will take health and safety for one semester and study life and career skills for another semester. Currently, those courses are offered to sophomores.

In addition, driver education will become a summer school elective. Video production was also added as an elective for sixth- to eighth-grade students.

Officials said the curriculum changes were necessary to better prepare district students for a new statewide testing program that will be implemented in 1994. The California Learning Assessment System, which replaced the California Assessment Program, includes testing 10th-graders in science and social science.

The board is expected to adopt the changes this month.

Although the school board unanimously passed the changes, board member Sally Burrage said she is concerned that making science a one-year requirement for sixth-graders will limit their time for other courses. She said they must have time to take such “exploratory” subjects such as music, arts and home economics.

But Julie Hume, the district’s curriculum director, said the exploratory subjects, which are offered on a rotation basis during the school year, will still be available.

“It’s not just learning science the old way,” Hume said. “There’s a lot of reading, talking and hands-on activities for the students.”