Health Class Now Offered to Incoming Freshmen

On the first day of the spring semester, about 60 freshmen found out that they had been placed into one of three sections of a new class: freshman health. These new sections were opened in the first attempt by the administration to move health class to freshman year instead of requiring students to take the course junior year.

Principal Eric Contreras and Assistant Principal of Security/Health and P.E. Brian Moran spearheaded the decision to create the new course, with their inspiration coming from conversations with various students, parents, and teachers. Originally, only two sections were offered. However, the demand for the course was so great among freshmen that the week before mid-winter recess, the administration announced a third section.

Contreras noticed that many students supported the idea of a freshman health class. “When I first became principal last year, I made it a point to go talk to students about what were some things that are really great about Stuyvesant and what were some things they would like, maybe not immediately, but in the future, to see perhaps tweaked or changed. One of the things that came up was moving health to freshman year,” he said.

It wasn’t only students who voiced opinions on moving health class. Parents made sure their opinions were heard as well. “I also have these events called ‘Breakfast with the Principal,’ and I think in my second one last year, a group of parents asked if we would consider moving health to freshman year,” Contreras continued. Because of the already hectic scheduling of junior year, parents saw the value of taking the course earlier to reduce the amount of stress later on and offer more scheduling flexibility.

Moving the course is not a new idea, but financial issues have delayed the change. In order to give freshmen access to health while maintaining junior health, a whole new set of health teachers would need to be hired. Every incoming class from then on would take the course freshman year, but there would be sophomores and juniors during the initial stage of the change who would have not taken health in freshman year. This means that there would be a couple of years where two sets of teachers would be needed—one set to teach the freshmen and one set to teach the remaining sophomores and juniors.

However, once you hire a teacher, the Department of Education adds him or her to the table of operations, meaning it is hard to bring on a teacher for only a few years. “I think that had been the reason it hadn’t been done,” Contreras said.

Working with Moran and a group of parents at another Breakfast with the Principal event, Contreras brainstormed a way to make the change a gradual one, instead of all at once. “We thought about an incremental approach to shifting health to freshman year. And depending on available resources, we may be able to do it over four years or over six years,” Contreras said. “If you do x number a term, you start slowly moving the class to freshman year over time.”

Another option for students looking to avoid taking the class junior year would be a summer health class. Exact details are not yet known, since it depends on the amount of available funding and the number of hours that need to be met in order to fulfill a credit. “We’ve asked for funding from the Parents’ Association to see if they would be willing to fund a number of sections a summer,” Contreras said. “If not, we can continue doing it the way it is now where every term we do two and three classes, and over time, transition.”

Many freshmen who were placed into the course didn’t know the class was available until it appeared on their schedules. Freshmen were picked randomly depending on availability to fill up the classes. “I was kind of surprised because I was expecting to have two free periods, but also because I didn’t know that they were giving freshmen a health course. I thought that was only for juniors. Honestly, at first I thought it was a mistake, even though [my schedule] said ‘freshman health,’” freshman Stacy Kim said. “I didn’t know they were changing the curriculum.”

Regardless, Contreras has high hopes for the freshmen taking the course now. “I’m very biased, but we have the smartest students in the world, and I think the students at Stuyvesant have the intellect and the maturity to talk about the topics that are covered in health. I also think that there is a lost opportunity to not talk about this for half your high school career in a formal classroom setting,” he said. “I don’t have concerns around freshmen not being able to take the course or understand its topics or content.”

Freshmen seem to mirror his enthusiasm. “The benefits are pretty clear because you get all this knowledge about health in general before the junior year [...] when you are graduating the next year anyway,” Kim said. “At first, I was kind of disappointed because, like I said, I was hoping for the two frees. At the same time, that frees up a period in my junior year for electives.”

The administration is optimistic about the success of the course and hopes that it has found the solution to the ongoing issue of how to move health. “We are in the middle of finally doing something that we have attempted to do for many years. We’ve found a creative way of actually getting to it,” Contreras said. “I am glad that as a community we are willing to try this out and see if this works.”