This school year 36 students had to give up one of their electives.

“I gave up culinary 2,” said Adam Syed, a sophomore.

“I had to give up choir,” said sophomore Janae Schmidt.

“I had to give up culinary,” commented Ben Wall, a sophomore.

And for what? A math class.

Integrated 2/3 is a one year course that goes over two school years of information. The students have math everyday, during fifth and sixth period, homework every night and a test every other week.

Sophomore Paige Matthews said,“It is very fast. It is hard to take in all the information since we don’t spend a lot of time on it. You just learn it and you go.”.

The class was created due to the shift to Common Core curriculum three years ago. Students in the class of 2019 who were not in advanced placement programs had to take two years of pre-integrated, setting them up to be in pre-cal/trig honors their senior year.

“I wanted to get caught up and be able to have calc as an option for senior year,” said sophomore Angeline Calzada.

Mrs. Tara McCullough, the class’s instructor said, “I was one of a handful of student teachers who wanted to do it and I was chosen to do it. I guess I wanted to do it because I had already taught Integrated 2 so I knew what to expect in that course.”

Along with teaching a course she described as being “so blisteringly fast.. faster than any course [she has] ever taught.” Mrs. McCullough teaches AP Calculus AB and BC, making for a very hard schedule to balance.

However, Mrs. McCullough is not the only person trying to balance her schedule. As said before, the students have homework every night due the next day and a test every other week. This makes homework, studying and not missing school very important. Missing just one day of school puts them way behind. In just one day, the class very well could have learned a whole new concept for the chapter.

Math is not the only thing these students are trying to balance. Of the 36 students, 22 are in one honor or AP class while 8 of the 36 are in two or more AP/honors classes.

“The nice thing is that this year everyone is kind of at the same level and everyone catches on     really quickly and it is nice to be in an environment like that,” said Genevieve Brookes, a sophomore.     

In order to be offered a spot in this class, the students had to have above a 90 percent in Integrated 1, meaning all the students in the Integrated 2/3 course are all advanced math students.

Although the workload and pace of learning is difficult, 36 students were more than willing to give up one of their electives for this amazingly difficult opportunity.