This coming fall, Palo Alto Unified School District students will receive the opportunity to enroll in a newly created, post BC Calculus course.

The course will be offered through Cañada College to students who have completed BC Calculus at either Palo Alto High School or Gunn High School, according to Radu Toma, the Math department’s Instructional Supervisor.

“Anyone who has completed BC Calculus at Paly or Gunn would be eligible for the class,” Toma said. “The class is called Multivariable Calculus Honors. It [the class] will be taught by Ms. Choy and will take place during zero period, first semester.”

The increased number of students enrolled in BC Calculus prior to their senior year prompted the decision to create the course.

“There are potentially 19 Paly students who may be taking the course and who are post BC [Calculus],” Toma said. “The number of Gunn students who will be joining the course is yet to be determined.”

Other than the payment required for the textbooks, the course will be fully funded by The Palo Alto Unified District to students as an elective.

“The students are going to have to buy their own textbooks, like they would for any other college course, but the district is going to reimburse Cañada College for their cost of running the course,” Toma said.

Students enrolled in the class will receive double the amount of credits that are given for a high school course.

“They [the students] will receive five college credits which would translate to 10 units of Paly credit, because any college class officially gets twice as many credits,” Choy said.

Toma expresses optimism about the creation of this course and hopes to see more courses such as this one in the future.

“Previous to this year, we didn’t have the numbers to justify the course being created,” Toma said. “It’s a numbers game; this is what is going to happen this coming year and we will have to see what happens in future years. For now, we are very happy that we managed to start this, this year.”