Lyons Township presents first reading of 25 course proposals for 2026–27 school year

Lyons Township High School District 204 administrators presented a first reading of 25 proposed changes to the district's academic program guide for the 2026'27 school year, including course name changes, level adjustments, two drop proposals and eight new-course proposals.

The proposals, presented by Dr. Payne, cover four categories: course name changes, level changes, drop proposals and new courses. The packet includes five name changes, multiple level reclassifications across Fine Arts and Science, two requested course drops and eight new courses proposed to expand pathways and dual-credit opportunities.

Administrators said the changes are intended to give students clearer course descriptions, align some classes with industry or college naming, and expand access to pathways such as health care and physics. "In your board packet, you will find a draft of the 2026, 2027 new course proposals," Dr. Payne told the board at the start of the presentation. He said the district follows review by division chairs, CSD and CLT before this first reading.

Key proposals and details

- Special Education grading: The district proposes changing a targeted reading intervention course from letter grades to credit/no-credit. Administrators said the class is individualized around IEP goals and progress monitoring rather than standardized course grades. Dr. Payne said the change is intended to make grading clearer for families and better reflect individualized progress.

- Heritage Spanish and AP expansion: The Fine Arts/Language Arts proposals include offering Level 2 heritage speaker classes as honors and adding a fourth-year AP Spanish for heritage speakers (literature and culture) with an option for College of DuPage dual credit.

- Physics pathway and new applied option: The science proposals move the existing Physics 1 from a prep level to an Excel level and add an Applied Physics preparatory course to provide multiple physics options for different student math levels. The AP Physics C offering is proposed to be split into separate year-long courses for Mechanics and for Electricity & Magnetism.

- STEM research leveling and organic chemistry: The district proposes allowing the STEM research course to carry a combined level 4/5 credit for students completing extended research projects and raising organic chemistry from Excel to honors for parity with other science offerings.

- Course name changes and adaptive labeling: Examples include renaming Intro to Furniture Making to Intro to Woodworking and changing multiple special education course titles to begin with "Adaptive" to align with common industry/educational terminology.

- Drops and program shifts: Administrators proposed dropping Introduction to Theater for low enrollment and recommended sunsetting historical offerings associated with the district's older "alternative program." Dr. Owens described consolidating several supported-study options into a single Skills for Success elective and said existing expanded supports (counseling, co-teaching, social workers, multilingual supports) reduced reliance on the historical alternative-program structure.

- New courses: Proposed new offerings include Postsecondary Exploration (a semester resource course for 11th'12th graders to build transition portfolios), Fiber Arts, Beginning and Intermediate Piano (all-grade-level on-ramps), Ethics in Health Care, Zoology (with potential dual-credit), and Applied Physics for Innovation and Industries.

Board discussion and next steps

Board members asked clarifying questions about credit-hour changes, whether curriculum or state course codes would change (administrators said course-level curricula are not changing for the name changes), teacher training for AP courses, how changes affect transcripts, and whether new course staffing depends on current teachers with specialized degrees. Administrators repeatedly said they would follow up with details where the proposals did not include specifics, and they signaled some items would return for clarification at the next meeting.

Dr. Owens, who spoke about Student Services proposals, said the Skills for Success consolidation would not remove supports for students and that staff recommended the change after an extended review of supports and outcomes: "We've seen just an attrition of that program, and so this really doesn't impact any students who are in the program. We don't have any students that are in the program in that way, any longer, and so we do want to remove those academic courses from the program guide, and kind of sunset that program as it had historically been situated here," she said.

Administrators said the packet shows that 26 course concepts moved through review, 25 were approved to present at first reading and one was denied earlier in the process. Several board members expressed support for the goals of increasing pathways and dual-credit opportunities.

The proposals were presented as a first reading; several board members asked for follow-up information (for example, the credit-hour change rationale for some health-care survey courses). Administrators said updated answers would be provided in the weekly update and that some items would return at the board's October 20 meeting for additional review.

Ending

Administrators closed the presentation and invited questions; no formal votes were taken on the proposals at this meeting. The board will receive follow-up documentation and is scheduled to revisit specific proposals at upcoming meetings.