Elective-Palooza!

New Roads Administration takes bold action to combat pressing issues on campus.

The New Roads Administration has been keeping an open ear throughout the academic term, diligently listening to the queries, frustrations, and desires of the student body and faculty in addressing what they see as the most pressing issues facing the ‘Rainbow Tribe.’ After a full year of listening, processing, and appreciating the comments of the bold, courageous change-makers of tomorrow on campus, the New Roads Administration released their plan on dealing with the most pressing issue facing the New Roads community: the lack of elective choices.

For the 2022-23 academic year, New Roads only offered a measly 69 elective choices. With the new elective revitalization plan, officially labeled the “Warranted Assurance of Students Taking Electives” or WASTE, for short, the New Roads Administration has gleefully announced an additional three elective courses aimed at embedding the core values of the school’s mission statement in each student’s days.

Life Skills Elective

School is more than an area to strictly learn about the well documented realms of academia – science, history, english, arithmetic, language, etc. New Roads understands that, to prepare its students for the reality of the inequitable world awaiting them, they must educate their students on how to handle the interactions and challenges that they will encounter on a daily basis. That is why the first prospective elective class offered will be a Life Skills course. In this new elective, students will explore real day-to-day situations that they already encounter to learn how to better handle challenges going forward. Practices that the students will cover include: Erewhon budgeting and shopping, Bluey’s ordering, and valet etiquette.

Suburban Survival Elective

As investment into the sports programs at New Roads increases, transportation to and from sporting events continues to impose a unique challenge on student-athletes. A new course, appropriately named the Suburban Survival elective, will be offered starting in the fall. Initial critics of the elective claimed that there wouldn’t be enough material to cover for an entire school year, but after seeing the decrepit conditions of the vans, critics quickly turned to ardent defenders of the program with one detractor-turned-defender saying the elective is “the only logical investment in combating the dangerous conditions of the vans.” Student-athletes will learn techniques such as shallow-breathing to avoid inhaling the mold that coats the walls of the vans, as well as brace positioning drills for when the seatbelts either don’t work or when there aren’t enough seats for everybody in the Suburban. All will culminate with an end-of-year project where students will propose creative ways to plug the holes ripped in the ceiling of each van to our Athletics Department. 

(Isaac Snegaroff/The Jaguardian)

Noses plugged and ready for action…it’s all part of Suburban Survival.

Modular Design Elective

Although funding for the Athletic Department has increased in recent years, New Roads stays committed to providing a multifaceted holistic education. After, arguably, the best Art Night we’ve seen in recent years, New Roads reaffirmed its commitment to the arts by announcing its third upcoming elective course: Modular Design. Continuing with the hands-on learning experience seen in the previous two electives, students in the Modular Design elective will have the unique opportunity to study the subject by exercising what they learn on campus grounds! Instead of meeting in the weekly or twice-weekly format that most electives function within, students enrolled in Modular Design will be called on to participate in dynamic situations at a moment’s notice. A wide-ranging curriculum includes rearranging desks for teachers, erasing white boards, sweeping floors, setting up outdoor events, and reimagining bathroom layouts by erasing existing graffiti.

The announcement of the WASTE program has received positive reactions throughout the New Roads community, from students to faculty to parents. Members of the Rainbow Tribe continue to take comfort, knowing that the issues that impact them most are being addressed and resolved in the most efficient manners possible.