The halls are filled with students whose backpacks are packed with materials, assigned by a curriculum decided on years ago, while students rarely ask why they learn the material they do.

According to Kari Ross, director of teaching and learning, the curriculum is supposed to align with state standards.

“For the high school, teachers of those courses (under review) meet four times a year to look at curriculum and what they are supposed to be teaching,” Ross said.

This past year, year-long freshman civics classes changed to a semester of civics and a semester of economics.

Freshman Jacob Stillman said he thinks this change is beneficial because both classes contain important material.

“I think I’ll be better prepared for future classes and later in life because both are important material to know,” Stillman said.

According to Ross, the order of math classes will change next year although it will not affect any current high school students.

“Next fall the freshmen will take geometry instead of algebra and will take algebra the next two years,” Ross said. “The reason we did this was so that students didn’t switch from algebra to geometry to algebra again.”

Ross said students in advanced math classes will still have the option to decide what math they take.

According to Ross, staff go through the courses to look at the content to align them with academic standards.

“They change the courses so that students learn as much as they need to in order to get to the next class,” Ross said.

Carley Kregness, head of the social studies department review process, said the curriculum changes in history courses will take place next year.

“We’re going to make sure geography is embedded into 10th and 11th grades to meet the state standards,” Kregness said.

Kregness said course review is an ongoing process. She said changes will be made to the IB history course next year as the changes that occur every seven years will take place then.