Principal Tom Harmas reads emails at his desk. According to Harmas, Assistant Principals Valerie Piehl and Brittany Wiseman will take charge of the polytechnic project.

After years of keeping Family and Consumer Science, Engineering and Technology, Business and Art in separate areas of the building, CHS Administration plans to merge these subjects into one polytechnic division of the school.

According to Principal Tom Harmas, this decision was made to foster an intersection between those subjects. 

“Here’s an example: you have 3D art (courses) and design (courses) and all this good stuff in Family and Consumer Science—is there not an overlap in there?” Harmas said. “Shouldn’t those people be working together and talking with each other? How does that function?”

This decision could entail considerable changes to the school, but Harmas says it is worth it to be able to meet student needs.

“With (this merge) comes the possibility of building redesign to try to help that. We talk about career and technical education—how can we better meet the needs of students through more of a polytechnic philosophy as we move forward and find those intersections between those curricula? How can we better help?”

 Senior Rami Hage, who is heavily involved in both the art and engineering programs at CHS, said, “I really think it’s a great idea. In college, I’d like to pursue science and art and see what I can make of the two of them. Some classes or programs that mix (subjects) together would be awesome—it’s different fields that should be more intertwined.” By Chloe Sun.

Read more about CHS’ current course offerings in the subjects that will soon become a collective polytechnic department here.