Wilson is set to add eight new classes next school year, including playwriting, play analysis, African-American experience in American Literature, Women in African-American Literature, Writing Research Skills, AP Seminar, Computer Science, and a class for members of the Student Government Association (SGA).  

Writing Research Skills: Writing Research Skills will focus on the basics of gathering information on the internet and collecting evidence for papers and presentations.

Student Government Association Class: The new student government class, which is mandatory for all SGA members, was created in hopes of increasing the productivity of the organization. “[We’re trying] to build back the trust that SGA has certainly lost with not being super effective because we haven’t had the time,” said SGA Advisor Natalie Zuravleff.

The main contributor to SGA ineffectiveness, Zuravleff believes, is a difficulty in coordinating a meeting time, which the class would fix. “Typically, the students are pretty motivated and pretty busy, so they don’t have a lot of time at STEP to make all that happen,” said Zuravleff.

Playwriting and Analysis: The Playwriting and Analysis classes will be assisting students who want to go into the field of acting and/or playwriting with the development of their writing skills. It is designed to help students better understand the fundamentals of reading and writing a script.

Computer Science: The new computer science class is not at the AP level, which administration hopes will encourage more students to participate in the field. The class will allow students to develop a sense of the basic elements of computer science while dodging the more rigorous levels of programming. “It’s sort of like problem-solving, puzzle solving,” math teacher Alex Jacoby said. “It’s a lot of fun, can be tricky at times, but it opens up a lot of possibilities.”

There are two AP computer science classes offered currently: AP Computer Science Principles covers the broad spectrum of the fundamentals of programming and data interaction, while AP Computer Science A focuses on learning and applying the programming language Java.   

The new class will solidify the Information Technology pathway of the SciMaTech academy, with the new class as the first in the track, followed by AP Computer Science Principles and finally AP Computer Science A.

African-American Experience in American Literature: While the class syllabus has not been released, African-American Experience in American Literature will likely focus on discussing and expanding the role of notable African-Americans in books as well as highlighting the work of Black authors, such as Toni Morrison and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Women in African-American Literature: Women in African-American Literature is similar in approach to the African-American Experience in American Literature class except that it highlights female characters and authors.

AP Seminar: AP Seminar is the first course in the AP Capstone program, followed by AP Research. According to the College Board, AP Seminar teaches students how to, “collect and analyze information with accuracy and precision, develop arguments based on facts and effectively communicate them.” The class will focus on the basics of researching and finding information, and the final AP score is determined by a research paper and a test.