During the first month of the new year in 2025, there were many events, including a short-lived TikTok ban, a presidential inauguration, and snow days. However, at KHS, the main event was the course selections. As sophomores picked their classes for the next school year, they saw a key difference from their previous year: the addition of a second semester of Practical Arts classes required for graduation.
As of 2024, the Missouri state guideline requires two semesters of Practical Arts (PA) and two semesters of Fine Arts, while the Personal Finance class only needs half a credit. Previously, Personal Finance was counted as a PA credit, which resulted in the requirement of only one PA semester. This change will only apply to current sophomores, freshmen and future students, while any junior or senior students will not be affected.
“(Principal) Dr. (Seth) Harrell made a decision to make the cut off with the sophomore class, just because of juniors [and] their planned program,” Associate Principal Dr. Michael Gavin said. “If you’re already in STL CAPS (St. Louis Centers for Advanced Professional Studies), or you’re already at South County Tech, [you’re] too far along and [you’ve] already had planned your graduation plan, assuming the old dynamic.”
Amanda Roberts, a Family Arts and Consumer Sciences (FACS) teacher, who teaches various classes like Child Development and Fashion and Design, shares how she advocated for this change. By doing so, Harrell changed the curriculum and made this change.
“I felt that it wasn’t fair that students weren’t getting the life skills that they need, and they weren’t getting to take the courses that were going to provide those skills because the credits didn’t make it possible,” Roberts said. “We went back [to look] at the literature this year and Dr. Harrell decided that [Personal Finance] should be its own entity.”
Gavin said he believes this is the perfect time to institute this change. With more kids coming into KHS with high school credits in classes like math and world languages, he says this rule will not be problematic for students’ schedules.
“This is coming at a good time because it’s a time when the number of students who are coming to us from middle school with a credit is the highest it’s ever been,” Gavin said. “Because of [this] middle school preparation, they have greater flexibility of taking more courses.”
Due to the increase of students who will need to take PA classes, there will be changes within departments and the way they function. Gavin said the new rule will be beneficial for the FACS department given the addition of the new FACS building.
“The good news is we have the facilities for [FACS] classes,” Gavin said. “In the old building, we were turning away 80 or 90 kids a year from the FACS department because we didn’t have enough kitchen space. Now we have two kitchens plus a demonstration kitchen, which gives us the ability to offer more sections of baking or something related to foods than what we could in the past.”
Despite the new and improved FACS building, which has more kitchens, classrooms and working space, the number of teachers for those classes has not increased. Roberts said she and her colleagues may struggle with the change.
“We went from a smaller building with a smaller space and three of us taking care of it to the same number of teachers with double the space,” Roberts said. “We need more hands over here to help us maintain this space and get it functioning the way that it actually should.”
Many PA teachers express the positives of this new rule. Zach Kirk, business teacher, said this is beneficial due to the hands-on nature of these classes.
“The Practical Arts are classes in which students get to do hands-on projects [and] get exposed to a real-world type of industry,” Kirk said. “Whether it’s the business world, engineering world or the FACS department, it expands students’ knowledge [of] what kind of careers exist out there in the world.”
Some students believe this rule is a positive one. Noah Krenn, sophomore, who has taken three semesters of engineering PA classes, said he believes this change is for the better.
“It’s in the name, it’s practical, they’re life skills,” Krenn said. “Engineering is important for me personally, and a lot of other people who want to pursue that, so I think the change is good.”
Although this new requirement requires students to take an additional class in this department, it does not require them to take another total class as the number of extra elective credits has dropped to seven from seven point five. Gavin believes that taking more PA classes is important as it teaches students valuable life lessons.
“Part of life is exposing you to things to determine if you like it or not, [which] disciplines your way of thinking and helps shape the way you see the world,” Gavin said. “And so, our students are going to get one more chance at that.”
