I have promised an explanation.
I was recruited to teach at North County High School by a former colleague who at the time was the principal, although I knew he was leaving before I signed my contract. I was primarily recruited to raise the rigor teaching AP US Government & Politics primarily to students in our STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) program. I knew I was also going to teach one section of STEM Policy, a course normally given to a social studies teacher. After I signed my contract, the position was somewhat reshaped to my skill set - as well as 3 sections of AP Gov and my one per semester of Policy, I was given senior capstone project classes of environmental media and of research / data analysis. Policy is juniors, Gov is mainly sophomores, and my advisory is STEM freshman, which meant I was going to see students over multiple years.
The program is being changed, especially in Social Studies. Through this year STEM students have taken AP Human Geography as 9th graders. That meant that during AP Government we had to teach them chunks of the 2nd half of American History, because they had not yet had the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, Civil Rights, Vietnam or the Reagan Revolution. As of next year they will take American History in 9th grade and will not take AP Human Geography until they are seniors.
Were that the only change, I would be happy.
But there are two other things
First, they are dropping AP Government from the STEM program. I had mixed feelings on that - I can actually challenge the students more outside of AP, because I do not have to worry about the massive amount of material to cover for the AP exam.
But for both 9th grade history and 10th grade government they are converting the courses into a form of hybrids known as "skinnies." It is therein that my problem lies.
Please keep reading.
we are on an A day / B day schedule. Students have 90 minutes of class every other day, with the hard to decision to leave my current teaching position:
