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Eagle Valley High School eyes adding 4 new class options for 2025-26 school year

Latin, two social studies options, constitutional law are new options for students

Eagle Valley High School and Battle Mountain High School both offer AP Spanish Language, the culmination of Spanish instruction that begins in elementary school for most Eagle County School District students.
Ben Roof/For the Vail Daily

Eagle Valley High School students may have the opportunity to learn about a handful of new-to-the Eagle County School District topics next year.

Tom LaFramboise, principal of Eagle Valley High School, presented four completely new classes to the school board on Wednesday: Latin, Introduction to Social Studies, Introduction to Western Philosophy and Introduction to Constitutional Law.

The four courses would fill various needs at the high school: supporting a student request, filling a hole in bridging the English language acquisition gap, and allowing a passionate teacher to follow their interests. 



What classes does Eagle Valley High School want to add?

These four courses are just a fraction of the classes the high school plans to add to its offerings over the coming years.

There are many other classes the school plans to add or bring back that do not require board approval. These classes include AP Chemistry, AP Spanish Literature and Math 180. 

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The school will also partner with Colorado Mountain College to offer Introduction to Sustainability, plumbing and heating and welding. Through Project Lead The Way, the high school will offer engineering.

On the trades side, the high school will provide advanced culinary, a second level of bike tech, and add a math track within the trades program.

The school is also considering bringing back journalism, video production and drama classes.

“Some of those are a couple years (out), some of them are next year, but that’s kind of where we’re headed,” LaFramboise said.

The challenge of adding diverse classes is that they are dependent on enrollment numbers and the availability of teachers who can teach specialty courses.

What about the four new classes?

Some classes need school board approval, while others do not, because the school board is required to review any class that is new to the district.

“Classes that have already been taught in the district but are presently not in the course offering book don’t need approval because they’ve already been done,” said Phil Qualman, Eagle County School District superintendent. “These are courses that haven’t been taught before.”

LaFramboise admitted he was skeptical about the proposed Latin class. To ensure genuine student interest, the high school administration surveyed students about the course. Over 100 students responded that they were interested in taking Latin.

“We have a large number in our Project Lead The Way medical sciences, medical innovations, that’s really going to help in the medical fields,” LaFramboise said.

Introduction to Social Studies will serve as an “if needed” course in a classroom consisting only of NEPO and LEP students who are still learning English. The yearlong class would be co-taught by a social studies-oriented teacher and an English Language Development (ELD) teacher.

“We have so many, we’re putting them in classrooms and their English is not developing, and I think our teachers working together could make a big difference in how we bring that language acquisition along,” LaFramboise said.

The Introduction to Western Philosophy and Introduction to Constitutional Law classes are the brainchild of one teacher.

“I have really a great English teacher that we brought in that is so enthusiastic about bringing in the other two classes, Western Philosophy and Constitutional Law,” LaFramboise said.

In Western Philosophy, students would read Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and more, wrapping up the 16-week course by reading about the philosophy of Artificial Intelligence and presenting on “a modern philosophical issue of choice,” according to the class proposal.

Constitutional Law students would cover various supreme court cases, learning about topics like freedom of religion, civil liberties and checks and balances over the course of a semester.

For LaFramboise, allowing and encouraging teachers to lead classes they are passionate about is an easy way to address two problems the district faces: retaining teachers and engaging students.

“I’m a big believer that — keeping teachers — you give them a passion project, a passion class, that really helps their attitude,” LaFramboise said.

“Kids feed off of passion,” LaFramboise said. “They know when you love what you’re teaching.”

What decides whether the new classes run?

Though the school board unanimously approved all four proposed new classes, that does not guarantee the classes will run at Eagle Valley High School next year. Whether the classes end up in the school’s curriculum is now largely up to the students.

“Whether they happen or not is really going to be dependent on students doing the enrollment process in the spring,” Qualman said. 

The enrollment process will begin in February or March. The new and returning classes will, for the most part, need to have a minimum enrollment of at least 15 or 20 students to run, though this can differ for some of the classes. As specialized classes sometimes tend to be smaller, they can unevenly skew the population in other classes at the school.

“That’s what we’re trying not to do, is burden other teachers with bigger classes so we can have smaller ones here,” LaFramboise said.


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