‘A very exciting opportunity’: Terrace and Hazelton to get new high school classes

Students in Terrace and Hazelton will have the option of taking a new class next school year.

In the fall, grade 11 students at Caledonia Secondary will be offered an introduction to kinesiology class called Human Performance. Hazelton Secondary is adding Cybersecurity Foundations at the grade 10 level.

The new courses are Board/Authority Authorized (BAA), and are designed to help the school district meet local community needs and give students more flexibility and choice in the classes they take.

“If you are a unique person and you have an idea that is perhaps outside the box of what the ministry has to offer and it is significantly varied from any course that already exists with the ministry you can prepare a Board/ Authority Authorized Course application,” said Janet Meyer, superintendent.

BAA courses cannot be very similar in any way to a course that already exists.

In the introduction to kinesiology course at Caledonia Secondary, students will learn about how the human body functions, nutrition, health and how to prevent and care for injuries.

The school district is billing the course as a natural progression from Physical & Health Education 10 that is intended for those who would like to pursue a career in sports psychology, physiotherapy, nutrition or other similar occupations.

Hazelton Secondary students in grade 10 will be offered Cybersecurity Foundations. It is an introductory course created to teach students cybersecurity principles and modern computing trends. The course will cover the fundamental concepts of cybersecurity and help students understand network vulnerabilities.

Another aspect of the course is that it will present students with potential career options. The course framework states that there are an “astonishing” amount of jobs in the cybersecurity field. Students that would like to become PCEC certified (Palo Alto Cybersecurity Essentials Certification) will have the option of taking the PCEC exam at the end of the course.

That means students will be certified at the very basic level of cybersecurity by Palo Alto Networks, a large multinational cybersecurity company.

“We haven’t had anything like that to my knowledge in our school district so it is a very exciting opportunity for students,” said Geraldine Lawlor, director of instruction, graduation and innovation at School District 82.

The BAA courses were approved by the Coast Mountains School District board on June 17. The Ministry of Education still needs to add Human Performance and Cybersecurity Foundations to its repository of BAA courses for them to be official, but Meyer said that stage is mostly a formality.

READ MORE: School District 82’s first week of in-person class is in the books