The student news site of St. Teresa's Academy

DartNewsOnline

Breaking News
The student news site of St. Teresa's Academy

DartNewsOnline

The student news site of St. Teresa's Academy

DartNewsOnline

Dart News

Theology classes to increase to four days a week

Theology+classes+to+increase+to+four+days+a+week
by Clare Kenney

 

00315Theology classes at STA will increase from three days a week to four days a week in the upcoming 2014-2015 school year, affecting not only the students and teachers, but their schedules as well. According to principal of academic affairs Barbara McCormick, this change is caused by an updated curriculum which requires more classroom time for theology.

 

McCormick states that the updated curriculum will change old theology courses. For example, freshmen theology will be changed to Old Testament one semester with theology teacher Matthew Bertalott and Christology with theology teacher Robert Tonnies the other semester. This curriculum change will also affect the credit system at STA.

 

According to McCormick, students currently get a quarter of a credit for each semester. With this change, students will now get a half a credit for each semester, so this incoming freshmen class will need four credits of theology to graduate.

 

Not only will this affect the credit system, it will also affect scheduling.

 

These schedule changes have caused concerns among students and faculty. According to McCormick, the administration was concerned that this extra day of theology would not fit into the scheduling system, but as of now it is working.

 

In addition to students, teacher’s schedules will change as well. According to Mr. Bertalott, the new scheduling will increase his work hours.

 

“In the past, I have taught 21 hours a week and now I will be teaching 24 hours a week, so I will have fewer free periods,” Bertalott said.

 

The theology teachers and students will be affected by this change next year, but McCormick hopes this will have a positive impact.

 

“My hope is that [students] will have more time with the instructors, so it will benefit them,” McCormick said.

 

As for teachers, the administration hopes they will get more time with the students in case of a special schedule. For instance, if STA has no school Friday, then the students with theology classes won’t get behind.

 

Mr. Bertalott is very much in favor of this change.

 

“Four days is required to cover the material in an academic way and with three classes a week it doesn’t do justice for the course,” Bertalott said.

 

Sophomore Meredith Raymer agrees that it will benefit her as a student.

 

“I think it’s going to be good that we have four times a week, we will more time to cover topics more in depth rather than rushing to finish, especially for morality where we need to discuss the issues more deeply,” Raymer said.

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

Please review the Dart's editorial policy before commenting. Please use your first and last name; anonymous comments will not be published.
All DartNewsOnline Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *