Placer High School will cancel senior projects altogether for the upcoming 2012-2013 school year. The decision to cancel the project as a graduation requirement was made near the end of the summer of 2011, much to the Placer teacher’s dismay, although they were able to hold on for one more year.

“It’s sad because our school and community took pride in the projects. It added to the culture on campus, and now there is nothing to replace it,” Mike Sabins, long time English teacher, said regarding the news.

After the district board canceled the projects over summer, the English department at Placer made a decision to keep the projects for one more year. They thought that it would be too difficult to cancel the projects so close to the beginning of the school year. Some current seniors had already started the projects, and there was not enough time to come up with new curriculum for the senior English classes. No other school in thePlacerUnionHighSchool Districtis currently doing the project besides Placer.

“We always make group decisions, and 100% of us decided to keep it for another year. We are very sad about the decision to cancel it for next year, because the papers the kids have to write and the speeches they have to give are such important life skills,” Brittany Haydon, a senior AP English teacher stated regarding the English department’s decision.

Teachers aren’t happy about the exit of the senior projects. They say it teaches important life skills such as time management, communicating with adults outside of a school setting, and organizational skills that students will need in the future. The teachers also agree that students were uneasy about giving a speech, but were happy with the end result after working hard on something they care about.

“My students were nervous going into the speech part of the project, but once they got through doing it they were happy and proud of their accomplishments” continued Haydon.

Next year, senior English will be merely an extension of freshmen, sophomore, and junior English. The class will now be like every other senior English class in the country. There may be questions on if there will be a modified version of the project. There will still be a research paper and speech due to state requirements, but it won’t be as intense or in depth as the past projects that made Placer High so unique.

“The cool thing about senior projects is that everyone has to do it, no matter if they’re in AP or regular senior English. Even if it’s not the same quality, it’s the same project,” senior Abby Myrick, who completed her project last term, stated.

The loss of these projects is hard to ignore. Teachers agree it’s the closest thing that Placer has to a college level project.

“I would hope that senior projects could come back, and people will see the value that is in them.” Sabins said.