20 more Oak Park High School classes have been approved by the University of California system since June 2018.

When applying to these schools, a student builds their transcript based off of the classes that are acknowledged by the UC system. They can later show that they took a non-UC approved course since it is in their official transcript, but it is not the ideal way to build an application.

UCs cannot see that a student took a poetry class, for example, without UC certification. In order for the UCs to see that the student took that class, they would have to look at their official school transcript.

Schools continuously review courses to see if they are eligible for UC approval. For example, Speech has been an elective at OPHS for many years but is not UC approved, however, it is currently in draft form and will be submitted to the UCs for approval in the future.

“UC certification is important because that means that our students will graduate UC eligible no matter what they take here, in terms of meeting the A through G requirements,” Principal Kevin Buchanan said. “There’s a number of our classes that have still not been submitted for UC certification, therefore the students can’t use them in their applications [to UC’s] to meet admission requirements.”

Advanced Peer Counseling is now officially an honors class called Mind Matters; it was approved on Feb. 5.

“Teaching this class allows us to collaborate with other mental health educators in Ventura County to share curriculum ideas,” counselor Janet Svoboda wrote to the Talon. “Also, Mind Matters gets funding for field trips.”

A handful of these newly approved classes include engineering classes such as: ROP Mechatronics Engineering Lab Honors, ROP Mechatronics Engineering and Honors PLTW Aerospace Engineering.

The other classes that are newly approved are: American Sign Language 3 Honors, ROP Game Design, Athletic Training 1 and 2, ROP Web Design, Honors PLTW Digital Electronics, String Orchestra Honors, Music Appreciation, Music Production, Health, ASB Government, Journalism 2 Honors and Foundations of Science: Earth, Physics, Chemistry.

Digital Photography 1 and 2 taught by digital media teacher Tony Peluce were also approved.

“We have a really great academic reputation here, and now we have a beautifully growing fine arts department, which is really important for a well-rounded education,” Peluce said.