Environmental Science will not be a class option for the 2016-2017 school year.

According to science teacher Patrick Wildermuth, while their was robust interest from students this year, few elected to sign up for the course for next year.

“My understanding is that there wasn’t enough entries for next year,” said Wildermuth. 

In spite of the apparent low interest in the program in the short term, Wildermuth is not concerned about the long-term status of environmental science at Campolindo. “Some years we have the class and some years we don’t. One year we had two environmental science classes. It’s sort of weird; it goes back and forth,” he said.

While there were some students who chose the course as an elective, there is a limit to how few students the district will allow for a class section.

“This year we only had 21 kids and it’s expensive to run a class with only 20 kids or 15 kids in it. We would rather run full classes,” said Wildermuth. “We’ve pushed people around so that we have full classes and we’re not teaching classes that are half empty.”

Wildermuth also added that the implementation of the new Common Core standards could also play a part in determining which classes are offered in future years. “It’s only starting the year after [next year] in our district, but that’s going to also change how we do things, and I think a lot of what I’m doing in environmental science, we’re going to push back down into the Biology classes,” said Wildermuth. “Everything’s changing. Kids are going to have a different pathway that  they need to follow.”