The District 203 Board of Education voted on April 15 to remove a variety of courses within the Career and Technical Education (CTE) department at Naperville Central and Naperville North. The board also voted to introduce a new Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Introduction to Engineering course. 

According to the proposal presented to the board on April 1, PLTW Introduction to Engineering acts as an introduction to “the engineering design process, applying math, science, and engineering standards to identify and design solutions to a variety of real problems.” The courses removed include Web Page Design, Advanced Web Page Design, Engineering Design Studio, Tech Edge, Tech Edge +, Drafting Studio 1 and Drafting Studio 2. 

“These courses have low enrollment,” CTE department chair Lynn Andrees said. “We’re hoping that enrollment, the nine students who might take a class that’s being removed, will go into classes that are existing, so the enrollment in those classes would maintain.”

Due to the low enrollment in these courses, the removals will not affect many students and their course plans. However, there will be a slight impact on summer school, as Tech Edge has traditionally been the only CTE course offered over the summer. 

“We didn’t typically have a huge enrollment in Tech Edge and Tech Edge + over the summer,” Andrees said. “I think it would be great to have other opportunities for students. But that really is up to a teacher who would propose a course or boot camp or something and be willing to teach it in the summer.”

Javen Oswald contributed to this story