There are a lot classes offered at Liberty, and while class sizes are growing, there are many classes that only have a small amount of students. These can often be hidden gems, offering courses that people didn’t know existed.
Two of these classes include Baritone and Treble Chorus, who each have six students.
“We split up the choir program into multiple choirs with slightly fewer students,” Mr. Datz, the director of the class, said, which explains the low number for those classes. However, “we also have a dip in enrollment since Covid,” Datz said. In these classes, students learn to sing songs and perform them at choir concerts. “We have fun, we sing, it’s a great class,” Datz said.
Another class with a small number of students is Magazine with nine students. Magazine is a student-run publications class that produces the Ledger four times a year.
“Magazine has traditionally been one of the smaller publication classes,” Mr. Hall, teacher of the class, said. “It’s very student driven. They determine what they’re going to cover, the layout, the graphics, everything. It’s a really wonderful class.”
Hall had a different reason for the small number, stating, “It’s not easy and I think that’s a reason they like it.”
Mr. Creen’s Engineering Design and Development class also has nine students. In this class students, “design and come up with an idea through a design process and then build the item,” Creen said. “The class is senior only. You have to go through a Project Lead The Way pathway. It’s a capstone class,” Creen said, which explains the small class size. This class was in charge of building The Perch, found in the cafeteria.
Computer Science II, run by Mr. Peggs, has only six students. In this class, students continue learning about coding within the Python programming language, using data to help make decisions, and many other things.
“We get into how the internet works, and all the different networking things,” Peggs said. “We also use excel in real-life scenarios.”
The class is strongly business oriented, and geared towards students who consider computer science as a career choice, which is one of the reasons the class size is so small.
“You’re really kind of narrowing down what you want to do after high school,” Peggs said. He also notes that “The classes are challenging. I would say also that Liberty has a lot of classes to choose from.”
For all of these reasons, the size of this class is very limited and it’s the first time they’ve had the class since 2022, due to a lack of students. Despite this, Peggs would love more students involved in this pathway. “I would love to see [the classrooms] packed full,” Peggs said.
These are not the only classes with a small amount of students. There are many others that have under 10 students that many people might not know about. Hopefully, highlighting the courses can show students some options they might not know they had. There’s something for almost everyone here. You just have to know where to look.
