Following the district’s budget issues and under enrollment in the French program, multiple LOHS French classes are moving to Lakeridge. Although the school currently does not have plans to phase out the French program, French 1 and French 2 will not be offered at LOHS next year and will instead be taught at Lakeridge. Additionally, AP French will not be run, and prospective French 5 students will be sent to Lakeridge for their dual-credit PSU Challenge course.

LOHS Assistant Principal Jason Hohnbaum explained, “In any class, we really strive to have at least 25 kids sign up for it.” Since not enough people forecasted for French 1, 2 and AP at LOHS, the school has had to seek alternatives in order to still run those classes. There are more students at Lakeridge who signed up for French 1, 2 and 5, so the courses will be run there. In contrast, “[Lakeridge] didn’t have the numbers to run a couple sections of Chinese,” Hohnbaum said. As such, interested Lakeridge students will come to LOHS to take certain Chinese classes.

For classes that require students to travel from LOHS to Lakeridge or vice versa, Hohnbaum works with Lakeridge’s Assistant Principal Brian Crawford to try to schedule them for the beginning of the day. Setting aside first period for classes across the lake allows students to return in time for second period. “This year, we’ve got about two dozen kids who travel here and back from Lakeridge at that time, and they usually are here and at most miss the first five minutes of class that second period,” Hohnbaum said. However, because three sections of French will be moving to Lakeridge next year, they might not all be taught first period. Instead, French 5 could be fourth period, which would be at the end of an A day, or fifth period, which would be at the beginning of a B day. 

Additionally, even if it comes to a point where Lakeridge and LOHS added together still do not have 25 people forecast for a class, the course is not necessarily eliminated, but the district will have to determine how to justify the necessity of running the class against the small number of interested students.

This is not yet an issue for the 2025-26 school year, but LOHS’s French Club is prepared to increase their focus on recruitment in a preemptive move to attract more French students.

In addition to publicizing French to high schoolers at Club Rush, French Club is looking towards the middle school for the next generation of French students. 

French Club President Laila Wahab, whose plans to take a French Independent Study are now uncertain due to the changes in LOHS’s French program, said, “We have also been trying to advertise the program especially hard to the middle schoolers coming to the high school so they can continue taking French for many years.”

Wahab encouraged people to continue forecasting for French because “the community is super tight-knit and inclusive, and the language is so beautiful.” She added, “I also want to potentially study abroad in France in the future…Being multilingual is a great strength.”

Nonetheless, as Hohnbaum stated, “Our schedule is entirely driven by student interest.” Therefore, in order for French to regain its classes at LOHS, more students will need to forecast for the language. Until that happens though, Wahab said that the French Club “will probably try doing more crêpe sales and fun bonding activities as a club to keep the French community thriving even if it is being divided by the lake.”