As course registration for the 2025-26 school year comes to a close, Cal High students seeing several former classes that have been brought back for next year.
Courses that have returned to the course catalogue include forensics, cardio fitness, and art and video production.
“There’s really [no] new courses that were newly developed,” counselor Rebecca Bellini said. “It’s more like bringing things back we’ve had before or bringing courses from other schools here like art and video production.”
Biology teacher Andrew White, who was out of the classroom for several years as a teacher on special assignment, will teach forensics next year.
White taught forensics from 2006-2018 as a Regional Occupation Program (ROP) class. Forensics was funded and by the Contra Costa County Office of Education during those years, but it will now be funded through the school district.
Next school year, forensics will be an A through G science elective course instead of a ROP class. In 2018, ROP decided to not fund forensics because of a change that required teachers to get a career tech education credential to teach the class.
This change meant White had to stop teaching forensics as he worked on getting the credential. But another reason for the discontinuation of forensics was the growth of White’s general biology classes.
“[Forensics] is training on how to collect and interpret data to be used and presented in a court trial,” White said. “Evidence is collected because whenever a person commits a crime, something is transferred from that person to the victim or the crime scene.”
White said the importance of forensics in a trial can be a deciding factor if a defendant is found guilty of committing a crime.
“Forensics is the most fun I have ever had teaching,” White said. “There is a lot of work, a lot of set up for labs and activities, and I am a little concerned about funding because as you know the district is contracting, laying people off and reducing our budget [and] it can be expensive.”
Cardio fitness is another class being brought back to Cal. The PE class will be taught by Darlene Addiego.
Much of the training in cardio fitness will be based on aerobics, step training, and weight resistance training.
Addiego, who has been at Cal for three years but has been teaching for 25, said the class is being offered for students who don’t like to play sports or want to take yoga.
“I feel like some kids…don’t want to do competitive activities against each other,” Addiego said. “Cardio fitness and cardio in general is just good for overall health and well being, especially as you age and get older.”
When Addiego first started teaching she did kickboxing as her first high school job, so she’s thinking it might be fun to incorporate those activities into her cardio class.
Art and video production is another yearlong being offered next year. The class involves using visual art skills to create and produce videos.
While this course is an art elective, art teacher Jennifer Bible said the department was blindsided when it learned the course was returning to Cal.
“As an art department, we did not know that art and video production was coming,” Bible said. “It’s not being taught by an art teacher but by a teacher with credentials in English and social studies, but students will be getting art credit for taking that class.”
English teacher Abraham Kim has agreed to teach the class next year
In addition to bringing back these classes, Cal is renaming other classes as well.
“There has been a little renaming for some of the band classes,” Bellini said. “In previous years we’ve had a class called wind ensemble but next year it’s going to be called Honors Band and will [have] a weighted grade.”
First year band teacher Robert Grigas, who has a background in marching band, concert band, symphonic band, jazz band and salsa band, will teach Honors Band.
“Students were leaving the band so if you have it as an honors course, it keeps more students in the group for a longer period of time,” Grigas said. “If you have an honors class for the band and orchestra, [it gives] them an incentive to stay longer in the program.”
Compared to how wind ensemble was taught this year, Grigas said Honors Band will be a bit more rigorous, with more scales, difficult music and singing involved. Additionally, students will be attending an area festival.
“I expect the same amount of students from last semester to this semester because there are steps to get into Honors Band,” Grigas stated. “You need to be proficient at your instrument, know your scales, know how to read music, play in a group […] before you go to the next step.”
The hierarchy of the wind ensemble starts with the concert band class, which is the beginning style. Next is the symphonic band class, the intermediate level, followed by wind ensemble/Honors Band, the advanced class.
“I love it and am excited,” said Grigas. “I’m ready.”
Similar to Honors Band, the peer counseling class has been renamed to Peer Advocates I and will have a continuing program, Peer Advocates II, available next year.
Senior Sophia Lomando said the name changed was needed.
“People got confused with the counselor part of it,” Lomando said. “So we changed it to advocates.”
In the first semester of peer counseling, students learned foundations of empathy and listening along with skills involved in counseling so they were ready to support students during the second semester.
These students are trained to help others with issues relating to family, friends or school.
“We also did a PIE training which is peer intervention and education,” senior Cindy Lau said. “It’s basically for people who are struggling with vape usage, tobacco or alcohol, so we are trained to work with these individuals.”
Picking up where students would’ve left off in Peer Advocates I, Peer Advocates II is designed on the same foundations of students helping students.
Peer Advocates II is for students who are juniors in the class this year that want to return to the program.
“They’ve already gone through the training and can start right away at the beginning of the school year,” Lomando said. “We’re talking about a lot of new ideas for next year, possibly reaching out to elementary schools.”
Lau said people who are set on pursuing different career paths, from teaching and the medical field, can take the class because the skills learned can be applied to multiple situations.
“I feel like it’s amazing the work we do,” Lomando said. “It fills your bucket in a way to know that you are helping kids.”
Another change to the course offerings involves a current yearlong class that will be required in two years. Ethnic studies will become a semester class that incoming freshmen for the 2026-27 school year will be required to take instead of world geography, Bellini said.
Another class that is offered at Cal but might be required in the coming years is personal finance.
According to Assembly Bill 2927, which as passed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in June 2024, personal finance will become a requirement for all California students to graduate high school.
This course will officially be approved in time for the 2027-28 school year, according to the state Board of Education.
Bellini is not sure how the bill will affect Cal.
“I’m sure [the district] has plans,” Bellini said. “If it is the law, yes we will be doing it, but I don’t know how that will roll out and if that’s a required class or unit.”
Personal finance and geometry teacher Rosemary Vargas believes the course curriculum is essential for all students.
“I think it is a very important course [because while] a lot of students in our area do know a lot about personal finance, I think every student should be aware of how to get a bank account,” Vargas said. “How to put money aside for retirement, how to pay for taxes […] I think all of that is important for all the students to know.”
Vargas said there are about 90 Cal students annually who take personal finance. She said if personal finance becomes a required class, Cal will need more teachers to teach it.
One possible solution is having students who are in the introduction to business class learn a unit on personal finance to avoid making them take both classes. That way, students don’t have to learn overlapping concepts.
The College Board also recently introduced a new AP Business Principles/Personal Finance course, which will be a year long and available starting the 2026-27 school year.
“I don’t know [if Cal would offer AP Business Principles/Personal Finance],” Bellini said. “That’s another one where if there was a teacher who wanted to teach that class, they’d suggest it to their department, they all vote, they say yes and then bring it to the board.”
But Vargus could possibly teach the class.
“Maybe I could work with the [economics] teachers and we could do it together,” said Vargas. “That would be very interesting.”
