Palmerton Area School District’s course offerings for the 2018-19 school year are taking shape as the board of directors prepares to vote on an updated program of studies at its Feb. 20 meeting.

Among the changes recommended for the course booklet are the additions of an “Accounting 2,” “Electronics” and “SAT Prep” classes.

All three proposed courses could still be scratched if the participation numbers don’t support them, but Palmerton Superintendent Scot Engler said the intention is to run the classes.

“We’re reviewing our enrollment numbers across the board at the high school,” Engler said. “There are some classes with a small number of students, and that is obviously not fiscally responsible for our district. For example, we currently have two English courses with nine students.”

The additional accounting course would help the district with its career readiness indicators, one of the ways it is evaluated each year.

“Accounting 2 could definitely help us with that, and we’re looking at how we offer other courses as well,” Engler said. “We have looked at making personal finance a required course down the road. It is definitely a benefit for our students to take that course.”

The electronics course, likely to run in the spring semester, will feature a Carbon Career & Technical Institute instructor, Joe Farkas.

CCTI offers the course at its building, but has been dealing with low enrollment numbers.

“Panther Valley is also going to be offering it along with us in the hopes of generating some interest for the class,” Engler said.”

The SAT preparatory course will have 45 days of English instruction and 45 days of math instruction, Engler said.

“We’re still working out the logistics, but this class came at the recommendation of our math department chair,” he said.

While not in the works for 2018-19, an addition to Palmerton’s language offerings could be coming down the pike.

The district currently offers Spanish and German for its students, but sign language could soon be joining the curriculum.

“We’re looking at that possibly for 2019-20,” Engler said Tuesday. “One of the directions we’d also like to go is offering German as dual-enrollment so our students can get college credits for that.”

Palmerton currently has a dual enrollment option for students taking Spanish.

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