New classes may be available at Harriton next year, and the school district is in the planning stages of a construction project that may add new classrooms and parking spaces to Harriton! Hello I’m Max Harris along with Emily Wright for today’s Ram Report. We begin today’s show with news coming out of a recent school board meeting; Both High Schools in Lower Merion will be getting some new courses in the coming years. Here is the first report in a four-part series from Harriton TV’s Adam Gilbert.
Video: News Classes Coming to Harriton
Lower Merion School District is planning to add new courses for the upcoming school year. I spoke with district administrators and attended a board meeting to find out more about the new course offerings.
In total, the district plans on adding 8 new courses across Art, Math, Science, and English. This 4 part report will cover a different subject each week. We start off this week with computer science. I interviewed Mr. Jason Lilly, the supervisor of secondary STEM education and asked for his opinion on the new computer science classes.
Interview: We’re really excited about some of our new computer science offerings for next year. We’re going to have a new entry level course called AP Computer Science Principals. We’re also going to have two courses on par with our seminar course. One is called Cyber Security and the other is called Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Again, we’re just really excited about these new computer science offerings. Come on out to one of these new courses!
The committee cited many reasons for why they are proposing new courses. However, they emphasized that currently, if you start as a freshman, you will exhaust the number of computer science courses you can take by the time you are a junior.
The new Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security courses will allow students to take computer science through all four years of high school. Additionally, the new AP Computer Science Principles will be an entry course alongside the existing Computer Science 1, however, it is designed to cover more than just programming basics and although it is an AP course, it can be taken as a freshman.
For Harriton TV, I’m Adam Gilbert. Now back to the news desk.
Thanks Adam. Make sure to tune in to our upcoming shows to hear about classes being added in the English, Art, and Science departments. Recently, Lower Merion School District filed plans with the township for a construction project at Harriton. The proposed project would include both classroom and parking additions. We now turn to reporter Sam Catania for more on the story. Sam?
Video: Harriton Proposed Construction Project
Thanks Emily. As you can see from this map, there’s going to be an addition of 29 new parking spaces in what is going to be called the west lot. This west lot will be adjacent to the student driveway, also adjacent to the current bus lot and it is expected that the new lot will be used primarily for bus drivers and custodial staff. It is not expected to expand student parking.
As you can see here there is also going to be the addition of a new reserve lot which will have as many as 98 spaces and will be located on the lacrosse field. That parking location is going to be directly next to the main driveway for Harriton which leads up to the office. Now, even though this new lot is going to be added it will not be used every day. The lacrosse field is going to remain in tact and that’s so that games can be played. This lot will be used on especially busy lots such as open house.
And then finally, we have the addition of classrooms at Harriton. It appears to be nine classrooms in a 4,865 square foot addition to our school. The addition is going to be on the back end of Harriton High School next to the athletic fields and the gym and exit, and that addition will fit in nicely like a puzzle piece. That’s all from me, now back to the news desk.
Thanks Sam. And now for a sports update. In Harriton sports, the boys hockey team won their first game of the year on Friday. Congratulations to all of the seniors who recently committed to their colleges on national signing day! In local sports, the Sixers fell last night to the Orlando Magic by a score of 112-97. This loss drops the Sixers down to 7-4 on the season. The Flyers lost last night to the Washington Capitals with their record now being 10-5-3. The Eagles, coming off of their bye week, take on the New England Patriots this week. For the Phillies, the offseason frenzy began last week. The team is said to have star pitcher Gerrit Cole on the top of their offseason wish list, while they have also checked in on 3rd base free agent Josh Donaldson.
We now turn to Student Council President Graham Branscom for an update on Student Council’s current initiatives.
Video: Student Council update with President Graham Branscom
Hello Harriton, it’s your Student Council President Graham Branscom and I’m proud sum up a few things that have been happening within the last month. We had Made on the Main Line, which was a tremendous success. We raised about $3,000, there were food trucks, and had a lot of great student bands play. Now we’re moving on to Dr. Harriton season. We just finished up a round of applications and we’re proud to announce our ten contestants this year, which are Mikey Kotler, Andy Wu, and seniors Keith Scutchings, Maximos Mossaidis, Blake Garber, Rowan Teran, Aidan Gallary, Jay Ramaswamy, Mikkel Andersen, and Austin Sellhorn. February 28th at 7:00 PM in the Harriton High School Auditorium is the show. Be there, it’ll be a great event. We’re going to have some really interesting talents this year so make sure to show out for Harriton’s most iconic event. Thank you Harriton.
Thanks Graham. And that’ll be all for today’s Ram Report. Signing off this is Emily Wright and Max Harris. Thank you for watching Harriton’s News Leader and from all of us here at Harriton TV, thank YOU for watching for watching the Ram Report.