MHS will offer three new classes for the 2024-25 school year, Assistant Principal Jonathan Mach said. The new classes offered will include Ethnic Studies: LGBTQ+, Ethnic Studies: History of Hip-Hop, and Film History, Mach added.
Vietnamese was also originally planned to be added; however, due to a lack of interest from students, Vietnamese will not be taught next year, Mach said.
At the time of publication, Ethnic Studies: Hip-Hop has 63 course requests, Ethnic Studies: LGBTQ+ has 29 course requests, and Film History has 28 course requests, according to information provided by Counselor Julie Cler.
Due to a complaint of there being too few classes for all students, school leadership hoped to introduce new classes for the next year, Mach said.
“There was an effort to figure out if we can run the semester-long classes so that, if kids did these classes, they wouldn’t just take TA classes,” Mach said. “They could have another academic course to put in their schedule to boost up their GPA.”
California will require a semester of ethnic studies to graduate high school starting with the graduating class of 2030, according to Assembly Bill 101. High schools will also be required to begin offering ethnic studies by the 2025-26 school year, according to the same bill.
Although MHS has always offered Ethnic Studies 1 and Ethnic Studies: Literature, more options for students to choose from seemed valuable because ethnic studies is now a graduation requirement, Mach said.
Teachers decide which classes they would like to teach next year and, out of that process, proposals for two ethnic studies classes emerged organically, Mach added.
“There was no administrative push for these classes because it had to be a passion,” Mach said. “As an administration, our goal was to have something somebody’s passionate about that they could teach.”
Wrencher always wants to teach subjects he is interested in, that way he will be effective at it, said social studies teacher Clarence Wrencher, who will teach next year’s Ethnic Studies: History of Hip-Hop class.
“I’ve been listening to hip-hop and rap music all my life, and I’ve seen the whole history of it,” Wrencher said. “I’ve seen where it came from and I grew up with it, so I think I am in a position to give some authenticity to its history based on my personal experience.”
Hip-hop is important to learn about because it is a product of American culture and a reflection of American society, Wrencher said.
“It is the people’s untold history,” Wrencher said. “It gave voice to the people who had been disenfranchised, and I want to show students the people’s voice.”
English teacher Brian McGarry will be teaching next year’s Film History class and he jumped at the opportunity to teach it when there was space to introduce it as a class, McGarry said.
“It is an area that is very dear to me,” McGarry said. “Just as far as studying goes and looking at old films, it’s always been an area that’s interested me since I was young.”
Students nowadays are being hit with a lot more media, and not understanding media is comparable to not knowing how to read or speak, McGarry said. Media literacy is one the most important things for students to learn, but is still rarely taught in schools, he added.
“I think (media) is the most powerful form of communication we have and we don’t show people enough of it,” McGarry said. “That’s where I’m hoping this (education) evolves and that eventually every school in America will have a media studies course.”
Introducing interesting classes is one of the things that can make high school interesting, Wrencher said.
“Classes like these make people excited about school and learning because they know they can get into something they think is really fun, interesting, and relatable,” Wrencher said.
For the 2025-26 school year, a few classes that have already been proposed are Science Olympiad and a class about career planning, Mach said.
“I think every so many years we have to look at our classes just to change with the time and see what’s needed and what’s not needed,” Mach said. “Adding classes is a really good process that we’ve had open to everybody. You just let us know and, if it’s the time for it, we’ll talk.”