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Paradise Valley presents first reading of proposed 2026'27 high school course additions, fee changes and pathway updates
Summary
District staff presented a first reading of proposed additions, name changes, fee adjustments and dual-enrollment alignments for the 2026'27 high school catalog. Proposals include expansion of work-experience credit recovery, CTE program growth (hospitality, fire services, precision machining), AP and dual-enrollment course additions, and a broad,
Paradise Valley Unified School District staff presented a first reading of proposed new and revised high-school courses for the 2026'27 catalog, asking the governing board for feedback before a second reading and formal approval at a later meeting.
Jackie Clayton, the district lead school counselor, and the district's Academic Program Committee (APC) summarized a broad package of changes intended to strengthen career pathways, dual-enrollment options and credit-recovery opportunities. Key proposals included:
- A districtwide work-experience course (modeled on Sweetwater Community School's program) allowing students to earn up to two elective credits (CR, not letter grade) for supervised workplace experience and related instruction; the district said ADE allows up to two elective credits for such work-experience courses.
- Formalizing sports-medicine internship credits as separate part-1 and part-2 course numbers and making the internship course repeatable (CR credits recorded after 60 hours per course).
- Allowing AP Computer Science A to explicitly qualify for an ADE-embedded fourth-year math credit if the teacher is CTE-certified and the course meets certification/dual-enrollment standards.
- New CTE program proposals: hospitality and tourism (course fee $30), fire services (fee $15), and precision machining (fee $30) with industry partnerships and credential pathways; Honeywell was named as a partner for machinery for precision machining.
- Creation of internship courses tied to CTE programs to meet ADE internship requirements (120 hours) and better align work-based learning to state reporting.
- New AP and college-board course offerings (AP Cybersecurity, AP Business Principles with Personal Finance, AP Microeconomics) and dual-enrollment expansions for public speaking and interpersonal communication so students could complete key community-college credits on campus.
- A district-wide fine-arts sequencing and fee audit with standardization of titles and sequences (chorus, band, orchestra, guitar, piano, dance, color guard), course-fee adjustments (examples: piano fee to $15 per course; dance to $15; IB studio art and IB theater fees corrected to $20), and recommendations for honors-weighted credit at upper-level fine-arts courses to encourage four-year arts participation.
Supervising staff emphasized process and staffing constraints: courses that claim embedded credits or dual-enrollment eligibility require qualified teachers and college approval. Board members asked questions about how many students are needed to justify new sections, whether transportation will be provided for cross-site CTE offerings, and how registration and counseling will guide students to pathways.
Staff said counselors will use the district's School Links college-and-career platform and that eighth-graders will be able to select courses in the registration process. The item was presented as a first read; no vote was taken. Staff said final adoption will return to the board after additional vetting and scheduling analysis.
