Attendance area boundaries for the Freehold Regional High School District will stay the same for the 2008-09 school year.
At its meeting on Sept. 24, the FRHSD Board of Education decided not to make any changes regarding the building to which incoming freshmen will be assigned in September 2008, according to Ilse Whisner, the district’s public information officer.
“The board members reviewed the information and determined that no changes in attendance area boundaries were necessary for the 2008-09 school year,” Whisner said.
“During the coming year, the board will be reviewing enrollment numbers and building capacities at all six schools, but particularly at Howell and Freehold Township high schools, and change is expected to be needed for the 2009-10 school year. We will be working with a demographer with the goal of having a plan for September 2009 in place by September 2008,” she said.
Whisner said an exact enrollment figure for the district for the current school year is expected to be available by the end of October. The district’s total enrollment is nearing 12,000 students.
In a curriculum matter, district officials announced that beginning in September 2008 Mandarin Chinese is expected to be offered to students in all six high schools. Other languages that will continue to be offered are Spanish, Italian, French, Latin and Russian.
As with all elective courses, whether or not a class is actually provided in a particular school is dependent on the number of students who register for that class, Whisner said.
“With our elective courses, if there is interest we run it. In some cases two levels (i.e., French 3 and French 4) could be offered in the same classroom. Our goal with all classes is to have at least 30 students register. The days of having five students in a class are gone,” Whisner said. “There is no intention at this time to cut out any language.”
– Mark Rosman