Secondary Students Explore Course Offerings at EHS

There may still be three months to go in the current school year, but it’s never too early for students to begin thinking about the future. 

On March 6, Eastchester students in grades 9-11 had an opportunity to explore the many academic options available to them at Eastchester High School, as they participated in a Course Fair that allowed them to learn more about some of the unique offerings available to them from faculty members, advisors and fellow students. 

EHS Counseling Chair Heather Reilly said that a concerted effort was made this year to promote more dialogue between students currently mulling their academic pathways and students who are able to provide insights on some of the programs offered at the high school. 

With such a breadth of programs available, said Reilly, peer-to-peer interaction can be a valuable tool in helping students determine which elective classes might be the right ones to help an individual round out his or her academic load. 

“Students have been hearing from counselors and teachers, but we felt it was important to give them some other perspectives that went beyond a simple course description,” said Reilly. “We know that students talk to each other about these topics, usually in an informal way, but we saw this as a chance to have these discussions in a more structured way, so they can get a better idea of what they can expect from a class.”

Olivia Caporaso was one of several students who volunteered to talk about her experiences with elective classes last week, as Caporaso and a few of her classmates spoke on behalf of the work they have done in Eastchester’s vibrant business department. 

The sophomore said that her main pitch to interested students was centered around the important real-world lessons she has acquired through her elective course work. 

“I’ve taken Accounting, Intro to Business and Personal Finance, and these classes have really helped me understand what it’s like living by myself, doing taxes, budgets and all that kind of stuff,” said Caporaso. “It’s also  given me an idea of what I want to do and focus on as a career.”  

But even for students who don’t gravitate towards the business offerings, there were no shortage of courses being discussed on Thursday that tapped into various interest areas. From electives focused on the arts to the increasingly popular computer programing and coding classes, Reilly feels that the constantly evolving opportunities available to students is one of the strengths of Eastchester High School.

“That’s one of the reasons we take our offerings so seriously; we want our students to have all these opportunities, and if you take advantage of those, you can learn from every course,” she said. “We believe that exploration is one of the most important aspects of education at this point in their lives.”

EHS juniors are selecting their courses for next year this week, sophomores will make their choices next week, and current ninth-graders will be submitting their schedule requests on March 24. 

EMS eighth-graders are also in the midst of their schedule-creation process, which involves informational sessions as well discussions with counselors and subject teachers about how to ensure that the academic pathways that will be open to them next year. 

“On March 3-4, we had all of the eighth graders come to the high school to speak with our counselors and department chairs about the course options for ninth grade,” she said. “As always, our goal is to make this a true process; nobody is making any quick decisions and we spend weeks if not months to present students with enough information to help them make their choices.”