Mandatory online course causes

Personal finance course faces new controversial changes Mandatory course causes conflict within student body BY KATE FERNANDEZ kfernandez.gazette@gmail.com Parents are forced to use their sick days Un-paid family leave is unfair W hile the technical term for paid leave in California is Paid Family Leave (PFL), however for the most part it is the mothers who go on maternity leave. Many female teachers at Granite Bay High School have gone on maternity leave at some point, the most recent being Stephanie May, who was gone for the entirety of the first semester of 2019. “Getting back in the groove of teaching kind of took a little bit of time, but I think everyday is getting a little bit easier and a little bit more comfortable,” May said. In order to take this leave of absence, however, May had to use all of her accumulated sick days, and is now down to zero. “I don’t believe I have any sick days at this point... I chose to take longer so that I could be with my daughter until she was of an age that I felt comfortable coming back to work,” May said. This isn’t an unusual occurrence, however. Lisa Kunst and Kathleen Angelone, both of whom are currently teachers at GBHS, also went through the same process when they took their leaves of absence for their children. “Right now I probably only have about 15 or so,” Angelone said. So if your kid gets sick or you get sick, then you get docked pay when you miss a day of school.” Kunst went through the same measure, and after having three kids, she estimates that she has about ten sick days left in total. “Once I use all of my sick leave and whatever time is remaining in the six to which weeks that I am given, I have to pay a differential, which means I basically have to pay the sub out of my pay, which I think is just horrible,” said Kunst, when describing the process of taking maternity leave. For context, Karl Grubaugh, an economics and journalism teacher at GBHS, has around 215 available sick days saved up. This disparity makes the trek back to campus even more difficult than it already is, which should not be understated in the first place. Leaving a child behind just a few weeks after they were born is incredibly hard on both mothers and fathers alike, however, those who go on maternity leave are not alone in the process. “I’d say the whole process is definitely bittersweet,” May said. It’s not fun to leave your child, but it’s also really great to work for a district that was so helpful and so responsive, and really helped me plan everything out.” Gazette illustration/KATE FERNANDEZ I don’t believe I have any sick days at this point ... –Stephanie May, GBHS English teacher

In what was supposed to be a fun, final semester for Granite Bay High School’s senior class has now become a rush to meet graduation requirements. The Personal Finance Course (or the PFC) is required by the Roseville Joint Union High School District for every senior who intends to graduate. It consists of four modules, with multiple lessons within each module. “The (PFC) is a standalone graduation requirement for all students in the district, with the purpose of providing the opportunity for students to expand their knowledge before leaving high school,” Assistant Principal Jessup McGregor said. The PFC is for students to get a handle on the skill and understanding managing finances requires, in a shortened form. “Students, parents, and employers report that the education system needs to ensure a basic level of financial proficiency for all students,” McGregor said. “This course is one way in which our district addresses this need.” Yet, for people like senior Erin Larson, the PFC is not enough. “I know they basically put no effort into making it (the PFC) actually important to us because they’re like ‘sit down for six hours and take this course and watch these videos (...) and then on the quiz take tests that actually have nothing to do with what you learned on the videos’,” Larson said. Many others believe the course is just as frustrating. As a required course, students feel as though the PFC should be held to a higher standard. “I don’t really agree with the mandate of the Personal Finance Course, as I felt it was a waste of time,” senior Isael McCall said. “The course itself was clumsy to navigate and had lots of spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and in some cases information on topics not on the test or quizzes.” These careless errors make seniors feel like the PFC is a waste of time. “There’s a lot of typos so it just screams to me that you (the district) don’t really care about my personal finance,” Larson said. The PFC was not always a requirement for graduation. At one point seniors had no course requirements. According to McGregor the course has been “required for at least five years.” Recently, however, a big change has been made. The RJUHSD announced that instead of allowing seniors to take the final exam online, as in previous years, they were going to require students to take the test on-site. “The biggest change is the “on-site” final exam. This was in an effort to ensure that all students complete their own work,” McGregor said. Past seniors had the ability to cheat on the course by having others complete their work for them, or collude on the final test. A GBHS alumni who requested to remain anonymous reasoned that many of their classmates cheated just to get the PFC over with.

“It was annoying and something that was hard to take

serious because I kept it as something to do later, rather than making it a priority,” the anonymous graduate said. “It was common to pay someone to do it for you.”

Former students held the same concerns as

current seniors regarding the quality of the PFC. And as a result of this, many students tried to find ways out of the course. Instances of cheating became so common that as an effort to combat it, the district decided to enforce on-site testing. RJUHSD didn’t stop there. In an email sent out on November 15, 2019, the district announced that they were moving up the course completion date to January 31, 2020 and also were requiring students to have taken their on-site exam by the end of February. “The course itself has potential to take time away from senior’s lives such as visiting college(s) of extracurricular activities, but I feel like it mainly conflicts with the mandatory volunteer hours seniors also need to graduate,” McCall said. GBHS seniors want the district to take action to either improve the online course, or to make it into a real class. “(I) Really feel like this should be a required (class) that people go through because it’s something that can be applied to everyone,” Larson said. “Everyone needs this in their life.” BY CORI CAPLINGER ccaplinger.gazette@gmail.com

Gazette illustration/DYLAN ROWE