Palo Alto High School will offer new textbooks and courses to its students next year, following the school board’s unanimous approval of both changes at its meeting on Tuesday.

The board agreed to order two new textbooks for its math department. The books, geared towards Algebra 1 and Geometry students, will be issued at the beginning of the next school year.

Board president Camille Townsend praised the textbooks and the effort invested by Paly teams responsible for the project.

“The presentation they gave yesterday was such a great presentation,” Townsend said. “Kudos, we appreciate the work of Paly teams.”

In discussing the Paly and Gunn math departments, the board also mentioned the two schools’ outstanding achievements in terms of mathematics.

“Gunn and Paly are among top 10 in math achievement in California,” said Bill Garrison, board director of assessment. “Paly is ninth statewide in terms of math SAT scores. Gunn is third.”

Garrison also noted that 75 percent of Palo Alto students taking BC Calculus scored the maximum score of five on their AP tests.

“As we can see from these results,” Garrison said, “Paly teachers clearly know what they’re doing in teaching math.”

The board also moved to approve several new courses for Paly and Gunn’s next school year.

Paly will offer an Interior Design 2 course, to be taken upon completion of the Interior Design 1 class already implemented at the school. According to the board packet, the course will involve a more in-depth study of architectural drawing, structure and design. Interior Design 2, a highly hands-on course, will be offered for the duration of the 2009-2010 school year.

A French Civilization and Culture course will also be offered. According to the board packet, this course will be geared toward students who have completed the AP level French course, much like the Spanish Literature class is geared towards those who have achieved mastery in the 4AP Spanish Language course. In the meantime, this class will only be available at Gunn High School.

Another new course is the Contemporary World/Model UN and Government/Model UN course. The purpose of this two-semester course is to expose students to United Nations structure and global affairs, according to the board packet. The course’s focus is to show students how the United States functions within a complex world of global issues. The contemporary World/Model UN and Government/Model UN class will be available for all sophomores attending Gunn until further notice.

The board also praised Paly math teacher Paul Jorgens for winning the Edith May Slyffe Award.

“Our own Paul Jorgens has been awarded the Edith May Slyffe Award for Outstanding High School Mathematics teaching,” superintendent Kevin Skelly said. “That’s a big state award, and a big achievement.”

For more information on the meeting, click
here.