By Barbaros Kilavuz
At Chatham High School, everyone has at least experienced learning a foreign language in some way, mainly through the classes provided at school. From middle to high school, students surround themselves in a foreign language and culture, expanding their horizons and promoting global awareness.
For one of those languages, though, things are changing.
In 2024, the German classes started to slowly be phased out in the middle school. As said by German teacher Mrs. Spooner in an interview, “In the past, we offered German classes to students starting in 6th grade and continuing through 12th grade. What is happening now is that we are phasing out German in the lower levels. So in 2024-25, we offered German in grades 7 to 12. In 2025-26 we offer German in grades 8 through 12, but not to 7th and 6th. Starting in 2026-27, it will only be offered to high school students.”
Originally, there was one German class until the AP level. However, as the middle school slowly stops teaching German, the teachers in charge will be required to change the curriculum to accommodate students coming from the middle school with less experience in German.
Why are these changes being made in the first place? According to Mrs. Spooner, there are a multitude of factors that play into the decision made. In her own words, “I don’t think there’s one particular factor that was more important than another. Reducing languages had a lot to do with the expected number of students who are going to take the class. Once we determined we didn’t need five languages and would be better off serving four, the question became which of the classes we were going to let go of, as we don’t want to let go of any of them. So we considered what languages the community was interested in the most, which languages students were signing up for, and who we do have teachers for. After speaking with Dr. LaSussa and Dr. Donohue, we made the decision to drop German. In the end, it was a tough decision, but one that was ultimately needed.”
Fortunately, this does not mean the end of the German classes in their entirety. The German teachers here at CHS still choose to dedicate themselves to doing their best to teach their students the best they can about the interesting foreign language and culture!