Nine new or restructured Benicia High School course outlines are up for review at Thursday’s school board meeting.

“The course outline of record plays a critical educational role,” Dr. Leslie Beatson, assistant superintendent of educational services, wrote in the agenda. “It is the primary vehicle for course planning. When a course is revised or updated, it is the course outline that records the changes. As such, it forms the basis for a contract among the student, instructor, and institution identifying the expectations which will serve as the basis of the student’s grade and giving the fundamental required components of the course which the student is guaranteed to receive from the instructor and institution.”

The first course up for approval is advanced welding, a full-year course for sophomores through seniors which serves as the next step for students currently taking automotive, welding/fabrication or construction, all courses which were implemented this year.

Another new course in the Visual and Performing Arts department is stagecraft. The full-year course allows students to learn about the vocabulary and elements of theatre, design and produce scenes from a variety of theatrical resources, understand the historical contributions and cultural dimensions of visual arts, critique and derive meaning from works of theatre and other media, and connect what they learn in theatre and other fine arts areas to careers.

The next new course is medical science and terminology, which requires completion of or concurrent enrollment in biology as well as Integrated Math 1 or a higher level math course. The health science class goes over anatomy, physiology and medical terminology and applies that to the study of the human body. The newly implemented intro to medical careers course is recommended but not required to take the class.

Other courses are simply being updated. Biology is being restructured to meet Next Generation Science Standards, Dance 1 and 2 are being aligned to the Career Technical Education Pathway, and drama productions— which deals with the technical elements of theatre— is now being offered as a semester-long course during 7th period to follow the rehearsal schedule for the fall and spring productions. It was previously offered during 6th period for the entire year.

The other new courses include Advanced Placement and an honors designation for advanced engineering.

In other matters, Chief Business Official will deliver a report and discussion on Gov. Jerry Brown’s January budget and Benicia High Principal Brianna Kleinschmidt will deliver a presentation on the implementation and feedback received regarding the new bell schedule that was adopted for the 2017-18 school year.

The board will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18 in the Benicia Unified School District Board Room at the district building on 350 East K Street. There will be an earlier closed session at 6 p.m.

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